Judge rejects calls to block Trump’s deployment of National Guard to Chicago
The legal challenge came hours after a judge blocked the Guard's deployment in Portland, Oregon.
A federal judge has refused calls to block National Guard troops from being deployed in Illinois by Donald Trump.
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The US president has vowed to deploy troops in the city of Chicago, claiming it is an attempt to crack down on crime let loose by Democrat politicians.
But Illinois sued the Trump administration on behalf of the city of Chicago on Monday after he ordered troops to descend on the city against the wishes of the state governor.
The legal challenge came hours after a judge blocked the Guard's deployment in Portland, Oregon.
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Kwame Raoul, the Illinois attorney general, filed the lawsuit to prevent Trump from deploying troops to the state, or any other state, “immediately and permanently”.
“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the lawsuit said.
However, a Trump-appointed judge has decided against immediately blocking the deployment.
Trump’s attempts to militarise Chicago mark his latest attempt to control Democratic-led cities, declaring war on Chicago, Los Angeles and Oregon.
“It will cause only more unrest, including harming social fabric and community relations and increasing the mistrust of police. It also creates economic harm, depressing business activities and tourism that not only hurt Illinoisians but also hurt Illinois’s tax revenue,” Raoul added.
Illinois’s governor, JB Pritzker, said he has not been consulted over plans to federalise the state’s national guard.
“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” he said this week.
“It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois national guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”
The Trump administration raged on Monday after a judge appointed by the president himself blocked the White House’s attempts to send troops into Oregon.
“Today’s judicial ruling is one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen – and is yet the latest example of unceasing efforts to nullify the 2024 election by fiat,” Trump adviser Stephen Miller wrote on X.