On October 6th, Illinois made an attempt to block the Trump administration from deploying the Federalized National Guard troops into Chicago by filing a lawsuit, but the judge who was assigned to the case refused to do anything about it until later. Attorneys from the state were trying to push U.S. District Judge April Perry to make a ruling immediately after because the justice department recognized that members of state National Guard and Texas national guard could be deployed in the city soon. The judge said she needed time to go through the government’s response to the suit and scheduled a hearing. She then declined to sign the state’s temporary restraining order. The suit proclaims that the administration’s efforts to send the national guard into the state are unconstitutional and illegal. The Illinois attorney general office writes in the filing, “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,” which names Donald Trump, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and army secretary Daniel Driscoll as defendants. The suit goes on to state, “The Trump administration’s illegal actions already have subjected and are subjecting Illinois to serious and irreparable harm.” The White House perpetuate that Trump’s actions are lawful. “Amidst ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like [Illinois Gov. JB] Pritzker have refused to step in to quell, President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets. President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. Representatives for the justice system, army and department of homeland security, didn’t respond to requests to comment, also the defense department refused to comment.
A federal judge in Oregon issued two separate orders during the weekend to temporarily block Trump’s administration from sending national guards to Portland, Oregon from California or any state. Both Chicago and Portland are part of a wave of democrat-run cities and states that Trump had targeted with the federal troops. U.S district judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, then wrote in one of her rulings, “This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs.” On the behalf of Illinois and the city of Chicago the suit makes similar arguments about federal overreach. It says, “The Federalization Order’s deployment of federalized military forces to protect federal personal and property from ‘violent demonstrations’ that ‘are occurring or are likely to occur’ represents the exact type of intrusion on State power that is at the heart of the Tenth Amendment.” It says, “The deployment of federalized National Guard, including from another state, infringes on Illinois’s sovereignty and right to self-governance. It will cause only more unrest, including harming social fabric and community relations and increasing the mistrust of police. It also creates economic harm, depressing business activities and tourism that not only hurt Illinoisans but also hurt Illinois’s tax revenue.”
The city and the state would like a judge to declare the administration’s federalization and deployment of the national guard of the United States or the deployment of the U.S military, or any state national guard in Illinois as “unconstitutional and/or unlawful.” Trump had been threatening to send the National Guard into Chicago for months and he gave them the go ahead.
The suit denies that there is any emergency or any need for federal troops. Pointing to a tweet Trump wrote back in 2013 which reads, “we need our troops on the streets of Chicago, not in Syria.” The suit says, “The supposed current emergency is belied by the fact that Trump’s Chicago troop deployment threats began more than ten years ago.”
“He has since worked to demonize cities where Democrats had been elected as leaders,” and provoked unrest in the state by surging federal law enforcement to target undocumented immigrants and protesters outside an immigration detention facility in the suburb of Broadview” the suit explains.
Moreover the suit explains, “Among other things, Trump and Noem have sent a surge of SWAT-tactic trained federal agents to Illinois to use unprecedented, brute force tactics for civil immigration enforcement; federal agents have repeatedly shot chemical munitions at groups that included media and legal observers outside the Broadview facility; and dozens of masked, armed federal agents have paraded through downtown Chicago in a show of force and control.” They also proceed to add that, “The community’s horror at these tactics and their significant consequences have resulted in entirely foreseeable protests.”
Pritsker said in an interview on CNN that federal authorities “are the ones that are making it a war zone” in Chicago. Trump has threatened to send the national guard into prominently democratic cities against their wills as well which included New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
The suit has also pointed to Trump’s remarks to a gathering of military leaders last week, which was described as his pitching “his plan to use American soldiers to punish his political enemies.” He told them that they must prioritize “defending the homeland” against the “invasion from within” in American cities run by “radical-left Democrats.” He stated his intention to use our neighborhoods as training grounds for our military.
Sources:
https://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/news/story/attorney-
general-raoul-files-lawsuit-against-trump-administration-to-stop-
unlawful-deployment-of-national-guard
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/us/illinois-national-guard-trump-
lawsuit
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/illinois-
sues-trump-administration-national-guard-deployment-chicago-
rcna235900
