CHICAGO — State and city attorneys urged the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to block the Trump administration’s “dramatic step” to send the National Guard to Chicago over the objection of local officials.
The 46-page response is the first since the Trump administration appealed a judge’s temporary restraining order on the deployment to the nation’s higher court last week, setting the stage for a potential watershed ruling on the reaches of presidential power.
Hundreds of National Guard troops remain at a base in the suburbs after Trump attempted to send them here to protect an ICE processing facility in Broadview that has routinely drawn protesters.
“As the district court found, state and local law enforcement officers have handled isolated protest activities in Illinois, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary,” the response reads, arguing that there is “no rebellion or danger of rebellion” giving Trump grounds to federalize the National Guard.
U.S. District Judge April Perry — who temporarily blocked the deployment while openly questioning the Trump administration’s “credibility and assessment” of the opposition to its immigration enforcement in Chicago — is set to rule Wednesday on whether to extend it.
More than two dozen governors and a coalition of former U.S. military leaders filed briefs to the Supreme Court expressing concern about the potential National Guard deployment in support of the state of Illinois.
The state’s filing comes shortly after an appeals court in Oregon overturned a ruling that had prevented Trump from sending the National Guard into Portland to tamp down protests.
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