By Ryan Morgan
A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can continue to keep National Guard troops in Illinois under federal control but cannot deploy them in Chicago while the appeals process plays out.
President Donald Trump has sought to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago to assist in a crime crackdown in the city but has faced legal challenges along the way. On Oct. 10, Judge April Perry of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Division of Illinois granted the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago a temporary restraining order blocking the National Guard deployment.
Immediately after Perry’s order, the Trump administration filed an appeal with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to stay the lower court’s restraining order.
On Oct. 11 the appeals court determined the lower court could not prevent the Trump administration from calling up National Guard troops for federal service but declined to stay the lower court’s order barring those troops from deploying throughout the state of Illinois.
Around 500 troops from the Illinois and Texas National Guard had been called up to deploy in Chicago. Most of those troops have remained at the Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood but a small contingent was sent to a Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview.
“Members of the National Guard do not need to return to their home states unless further ordered by a court to do so,” the appeals court decision reads.
The decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is similar to one issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week, in response to legal challenges over a National Guard deployment in Oregon. As with the Illinois case, the Trump administration had called National Guard troops up for federal service in Portland, only for a district court to grant a temporary restraining order blocking such a deployment in the city.
Chicago and Portland are among several major U.S. cities where the Trump administration has sought to deploy military resources to assist federal immigration enforcement operations and protect federal property.
In June, Trump deployed National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles.
By August, the president had asserted temporary federal control over the local police department in Washington, D.C. and dispatched National Guard troops to the nation’s capital to assist local law enforcement efforts.
National Guard troops have also begun to patrol the streets of Memphis, Tennessee, as part of a federal law and order initiative.
Trump has been building anticipation for a troop mobilization to Chicago for weeks.
In September, he shared a social media post evoking the film “Apocalypse Now” and the recent rebranding of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, with a caption stating “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” and “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
While speaking to a gathering of senior military officials on Sept. 30, Trump remarked that he had suggested to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth that the administration should use high-crime cities “as training grounds for our military” before adding that “we’re going into Chicago very soon.”
Epoch Times reporters Joseph Lord, Nathan Worcester, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
