Illinois has launched a legal challenge to block US President Donald Trump from deploying hundreds of federalised National Guard troops into the streets of Chicago.
The legal challenge on Monday, local time, came hours after a judge blocked the Guard’s deployment in Portland, Oregon, in the latest flashpoint in a growing number of court battles over the president’s authority to deploy military forces domestically.
The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid the government’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Officials in Illinois and Oregon say military intervention is not needed and that federal involvement is inflaming the situation.
The lawsuit alleges that “these advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous.”
“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 says.
The National Guard near the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland. (AP: Ethan Swope)
Federal wave is an ‘invasion’, governor says
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said some 300 of the state’s guard troops were to be federalised and deployed to Chicago, along with 400 others from Texas.
Mr Pritzker said the potential deployment amounted to “Trump’s invasion,” and he called on Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott to block it.
Mr Abbott pushed back and said the crackdown was needed to protect federal workers who were in the city as part of the president’s increased immigration enforcement.
The National Guard was deployed to Chicago in 1968 — it left the city ‘traumatised’
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed in a weekend statement that Trump authorised using Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness”.
In Chicago, the sight of armed border patrol agents making arrests near famous landmarks amplified concerns from residents already uneasy after an immigration crackdown that began last month.
Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday that he signed an executive order barring federal immigration agents and others from using city owned property, such as parking lots, garages and vacant lots, as staging areas for enforcement operations.
Mayor limits protest hours at ICE site
Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters on Friday.
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, citing safety and other factors, said she was limiting protests to 9am to 6pm.
Federal officials have reported 13 arrests near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. (AP: Chicago Sun-Times/Anthony Vazquez)
The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that agents shot a woman on Saturday on the south-west side of Chicago.
The department said it happened after border patrol agents patrolling the area were “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said it was reasonable for agents to believe they were being ambushed.
Portland says no crime crisis
In Portland, US District Judge Karin Immergut on Sunday granted a temporary restraining order sought by Oregon and California barring the deployment of National Guard troops to Oregon from any state and the District of Columbia.
Trump blocked from deploying National Guard troops to Oregon
Judge Immergut, who was appointed by Mr Trump during his first term, seemed incredulous that the president moved to send National Guard troops to Oregon from neighbouring California and then from Texas on Sunday, just hours after she had ruled against it the first time.
“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said. “Why is this appropriate?”
Since Mr Trump’s second term, there have been protests outside the city’s ICE facility.
Over the weekend, larger crowds gathered outside the facility and federal agents fired tear gas, deployed pepper spray and made several arrests.
Most violent crime around the US has actually declined in recent years, including in Portland, where homicides from January through June decreased by 51 per cent to 17 this year compared to the same period in 2024, data shows.
Since the start of his second term, Mr Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore, Memphis, Tennessee, the District of Columbia, New Orleans,and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A federal judge in September said the administration “willfully” broke federal law by deploying guard troops to Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.
AP/Reuters
