{"id":303493,"date":"2025-10-14T20:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/303493\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T20:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T20:10:09","slug":"texas-national-guard-members-removed-from-illinois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/303493\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas National Guard members removed from Illinois"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas National Guard sent home seven soldiers whose fitness levels seemingly \u201cdid not meet mission requirements\u201d for their deployment to Illinois<\/a>, a Texas Military Department spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In a statement provided to the Tribune, the spokesperson said the service members were replaced \u201cduring the pre-mission validation process\u201d at the U.S. Army Reserve training center in suburban Elwood, where the troops have been garrisoned<\/a> since last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese service members were returned to home station,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The decision comes after some soldiers were ridiculed on social media for their physical appearance upon their arrival in Illinois. Widely circulated media photographs showed heavier guardsmen at the Elwood base, prompting critics to question how the troops fit in with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insistence that all military members must meet height and weight standards.<\/p>\n

Hegseth \u2014who told top military leaders last month that it was \u201ctiring\u201d to see \u201cfat troops\u201d \u2014 signaled his support for the soldiers\u2019 removal on social media Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cStandards are back at The @DeptofWar,\u201d he posted on X<\/a>, along with a screenshot of story about the Texas National Guard\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

The Texas Military Department did not specify which standards the seven guard members did not meet, but the statement said the department \u201cechoes Secretary Hegseth\u2019s message to the force: \u2018Our standards will be high, uncompromising, and clear.’\u201d<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Chicago last week blocked<\/a> the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Chicago and the rest of Illinois as part of its ongoing immigration enforcement push. In response, the Trump administration requested an emergency stay of the order, which was denied<\/a> by a federal appeals court in Chicago on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, however, did allow National Guard members already in Illinois to remain here during the appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of the National Guard do not need to return to their home states unless further ordered by a court to do so,\u201d the court order said.<\/p>\n

In her oral ruling from the bench, U.S. District Judge April Perry, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, said National Guard troops are \u201cnot trained in de-escalation or other extremely important law enforcement functions that would help to quell these problems,\u201d and that allowing troops to come into Chicago \u201cwill only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice argued in a filing Friday night that Perry\u2019s order \u201cimproperly impinges on the Commander in Chief\u2019s supervision of military operations, countermands a military directive to officers in the field, and endangers federal personnel and property.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been no visible presence of the Texas National Guard since last week\u2019s ruling. Before the judge\u2019s ruling, the troops were spotted at an Immigration and Customs enforcement detention center in west suburban Broadview<\/a>, but they did not interact with protesters.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has not clarified what the Guard members will be doing while the appeal plays out. Uniformed troops have been spotted a U.S. Army Reserve Center in recent days, with a few appearing to be carrying rifles as they walked around the sprawling 3,600-acre property about 50 miles southwest of Chicago.<\/p>\n

ostevens@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas National Guard sent home seven soldiers whose fitness levels seemingly \u201cdid not meet mission requirements\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":303494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,11452,154071,154070,5386,1818,7090,147071,121074,6986,145271],"class_list":{"0":"post-303493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-deployment","10":"tag-eldwood","11":"tag-fat-troops","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-national-guard","15":"tag-national-guard-in-illinois","16":"tag-operation-midway-blitz","17":"tag-pete-hegseth","18":"tag-texas-national-guard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115374340433903053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}