By Andrew Chung and Jan Wolfe<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) \u2013 The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send National Guard troops to the Chicago area as the Republican president expands the use of the military for domestic purposes in a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions, a policy critics call an effort to punish adversaries and stifle dissent.<\/p>\n
The justices let stand for now a judge\u2019s order blocking the deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops in a legal challenge brought by Illinois \u200dofficials and local leaders. The U.S. Justice Department had sought to allow the deployment while the case proceeds.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,\u201d the court\u2019s majority held in an unsigned order.<\/p>\n
The order said the president\u2019s authority to take federal control of National Guard troops likely only applies in \u201cexceptional\u201d circumstances.<\/p>\n
Three conservatives on the court said they dissented from the order: Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.<\/p>\n
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
HIGH COURT RULING A RARE SETBACK FOR TRUMP<\/p>\n
It was a rare setback for Trump\u2019s administration at the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has frequently backed his broad assertions of presidential authority since his return to the White House.<\/p>\n
The National Guard serves as state-based militia forces that answer \u200cto state governors except when called into federal service by the president.<\/p>\n
Trump ordered troops to Chicago, the third-largest U.S. city, and to Portland, \u200cOregon, following his earlier deployments to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
The case has been characterized by starkly different portrayals of the protests against Trump\u2019s aggressive immigration enforcement in and around Chicago.<\/p>\n
Trump and his allies have described Democratic-led cities as lawless, crime-ravaged and plagued with vast, violent protests.<\/p>\n
His administration has said troops are needed to protect federal property and personnel at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility that has become a flashpoint for Chicago activists opposed to Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n
Democratic mayors and governors, along with other Trump critics, have said these claims are a false account of the situation and a \u200bpretext for sending troops, accusing Trump of abusing his power.<\/p>\n
Federal judges have expressed skepticism over the administration\u2019s dire view of protests that local law enforcement officials have called limited in size, largely peaceful and manageable by their own forces \u2013 far from the \u201cwar zone\u201d conditions described by Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump has relied on a law that lets a president deploy state National Guard troops to suppress a rebellion, \u200drepel an invasion or if he is \u201cunable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illinois and \u200bChicago sued after the administration federalized 300 Illinois National Guard troops and also ordered Texas National Guard troops into the state, calling the actions \u200bunlawful.\u00a0Officials have since announced the administration was sending home hundreds of National Guard troops who were dispatched to Portland from California, and to Chicago from Texas.<\/p>\n
Chicago-based U.S. District Judge April Perry temporarily blocked the \u200dmove on October 9, finding that the claims of violence during protests at an immigration facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, where a small group of demonstrators had gathered daily for weeks, were unreliable.<\/p>\n
Perry, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, found that there was no evidence of rebellion or that the law was not being enforced, faulting officials for \u201cequating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting or doing violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
A National Guard deployment would \u201conly add fuel to the fire,\u201d Perry said.<\/p>\n
A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift Perry\u2019s order blocking the deployment, concluding that \u201cthe facts \u200ddo not justify the president\u2019s actions in Illinois.\u201d Two of the three judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including one by Trump.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department told the Supreme Court that the assessment by local officials of the protests was \u201cimplausibly rosy,\u201d and that federal agents \u201chave been forced to operate under the constant threat of mob violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawyers for Illinois and Chicago told the justices that the local protests have \u201cnever \u200dhindered the continued operation\u201d of the Broadview facility, and that state and local \u200dauthorities have responded to every request for assistance and contained any sporadic disruption.<\/p>\n
Officials from Portland and Oregon are pursuing a separate legal challenge \u200bto Trump\u2019s planned deployment to that city. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, permanently blocked that deployment in a November 7 \u200bruling. The administration has \u2060appealed that ruling.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court in October asked the administration as well as Illinois and Chicago to provide written arguments over how \u200cto interpret the words \u201cregular forces\u201d in the law at issue in the case.<\/p>\n
In an October 10 written ruling, Perry said that historical sources indicate that \u201cregular forces\u201d means only members regularly enlisted in the military, including the Army and Navy, as opposed to the National Guard.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s administration \u201cmade no attempt to rely on the regular forces before resorting to federalization of the National Guard,\u201d Perry said, adding that there are other limits on the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n
The administration repeatedly has sought the Supreme Court\u2019s intervention to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Andrew Chung, Jan Wolfe, John Kruzel, Nate Raymond and Trevor \u2060Hunnicutt; Editing by Will Dunham and Howard Goller)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Andrew Chung and Jan Wolfe WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) \u2013 The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":468622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-468621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115773883478626812","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468621","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=468621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}