President Donald Trump has appealed to the Supreme Court to permit the deployment of the National Guard in Chicago after the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals blocked his attempt to send troops to the city. The administration argues that the lower court’s ruling endangers federal officers facing violent attacks from anti-ICE demonstrators. Solicitor General John Sauer stated that the decision “prevents the Guard from ensuring the enforcement of federal law” and undermines the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief.
In its ruling, the Seventh Circuit maintained that there was not enough evidence to justify deploying the military, noting that “political opposition is not rebellion.” The court said protests, even if organized and armed, do not constitute grounds for federal military intervention. Sauer countered that similar court challenges in California and Oregon have been overturned and emphasized recent assaults on federal personnel in Chicago, including ambushes, vehicle rammings, and online threats. The Supreme Court’s decision could set a precedent for presidential authority to deploy troops domestically in response to civil unrest.
Key Points
- Trump petitioned the Supreme Court to allow National Guard deployment in Chicago.
- The Seventh Circuit blocked the move, saying protests do not amount to rebellion.
- The administration argues that violence against federal officers justifies military intervention.
Trump Urges SCOTUS To Allow National Guard To Deploy In Chicago
President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow the deployment of the National Guard in Chicago.
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to halt a lower court decision Thursday blocking Trump from sending troops to the area.
Letting the lower court’s order stand would “immediately increase the risk that federal personnel in Chicago may be seriously harmed by violent anti-ICE agitators,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the administration’s application.
“[The ruling] deprives DHS officers of the protections that the President sought to give them from ongoing violence, prevents the Guard from ensuring the enforcement of federal law, and puts lives and property in danger,” Sauer wrote. “It also places the Seventh Circuit in the untenable position of controlling the military chain of command and judicially micromanaging the exercise of the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers, including the decision about which military forces the President can deploy.”
Saur noted the Ninth Circuit blocked a lower court order in June preventing Trump from sending troops to Los Angeles. He also highlighted that lower courts are currently considering a similar injunction blocking Trump from “federalizing the Oregon National Guard to address violent opposition to federal immigration officers in Portland.”
“In recent weeks, federal officers in Chicago have been threatened and assaulted, attacked in a harrowing pre-planned ambush involving many assailants, rammed in their government vehicles, shot at with fireworks and other improvised weapons, injured and hospitalized, and threatened in person and online—including by a $10,000 bounty for the murder of a senior federal official,” he wrote.
The Seventh Circuit wrote Thursday that there is ” insufficient evidence that protest activity in Illinois has significantly impeded the ability of federal officers to execute
federal immigration laws.”
“Political opposition is not rebellion,” the panel wrote. “A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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