Federal court to weigh Trump's deployment of National Guard troops in
Chicago area
[October 09, 2025]
By SUDHIN THANAWALA
President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois
faces legal scrutiny Thursday at a pivotal court hearing that will occur
the day after a small number of Guard troops started protecting federal
property in the Chicago area.
U.S. District Judge April Perry will hear arguments over a request to
block the deployment of Illinois and Texas Guard members. Illinois Gov.
JB Pritzker and local officials strongly oppose use of the Guard.
An “element” of the 200 Texas Guard troops sent to Illinois started
working in the Chicago area on Wednesday, according to a spokesperson
for the U.S. Northern Command, who spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details not been
made public. The spokesperson did not say where specifically the troops
were sent.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, arrived this week at a
U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops
are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days.
The Guard members are in the city to protect U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement buildings and other federal facilities and law
enforcement personnel, according to Northern Command. Trump earlier sent
troops to Los Angeles and Washington, and a small number this week
started assisting law enforcement in Memphis.
Those troops are part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, a collection of
about a dozen federal law enforcement agencies ordered by Trump to fight
crime in the city. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports using the
Guard.
The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the military’s role
in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing
to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch
active duty military in states that are unable to put down an
insurrection or are defying federal law.
Chicago and Illinois have filed a lawsuit to stop the deployments,
calling them unnecessary and illegal. Trump, meanwhile, has portrayed
Chicago as a lawless “hellhole” of crime, though statistics show a
significant recent drop in crime.
The Republican president said Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon
Johnson and Pritzker, both Democrats, should be jailed for failing to
protect federal agents during immigration enforcement crackdowns.
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Military personnel in uniform, with the Texas National Guard patch
on, are seen at the U.S. Army Reserve Center, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025,
in Elwood, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
In a court filing in the lawsuit, the city and state say protests at
a temporary ICE detention facility in the Chicago suburb of
Broadview have “never come close to stopping federal immigration
enforcement.”
“The President is using the Broadview protests as a pretext,” they
wrote. “The impending federal troop deployment in Illinois is the
latest episode in a broader campaign by the President’s
administration to target jurisdictions the President dislikes.”
Also Thursday, a panel of judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals was scheduled to hear arguments over whether Trump had the
authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The
president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have
been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building. State
and city leaders insist troops are neither wanted nor needed there.
U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut on Sunday granted Oregon and
California a temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of
Guard troops to Portland. Trump had mobilized California troops for
Portland just hours after Immergut first blocked him from using
Oregon's Guard.
The administration has yet to appeal that order to the 9th Circuit.
Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term, rejected the
president's assertions that troops were needed to protect Portland
and immigration facilities, saying "it had been months since there
was any sustained level of violent or disruptive protest activity in
the city.”
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Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Konstantin
Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
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