Courts have temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s initiatives to deploy the National Guard in cities like Chicago and Portland, Oregon. However, troops are currently on patrol in Memphis, Tennessee, with the approval of the state’s governor.
These troops, clad in National Guard attire and equipped with protective gear, have been seen patrolling a Bass Pro Shops location and a nearby tourist welcome center next to the Mississippi River on Friday. The exact number of troops dispatched to Memphis remains unclear.
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Trump has proposed or implemented troop deployments in additional cities, including Baltimore, Washington D.C., New Orleans, and California’s Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. According to the federal government, the troops are meant to bolster immigration agents and safeguard federal properties.
The Guard troops in Memphis remain under the command of Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who supports their use to further a federal crackdown on crime.
Conversely, Trump has sought to send National Guard troops to Portland and Chicago, involving control over them despite opposition from state and local authorities who argue that such federal intervention breaches their autonomy and violates federal statutes. This week, federal courts in Illinois and Oregon obstructed Trump’s attempts to send troops to these cities.
Here’s where things stand:
What’s happening in Memphis
On September 15, Trump declared his intention to deploy the Guard to Memphis, a move welcomed by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, as a means to enhance local law enforcement activities.
Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat who did not request this deployment, expressed his hope that the task force will focus on apprehending violent offenders instead of causing fear, harassment, or intimidation among the residents.
Federal officials say agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service have made hundreds of arrests and issued more than 2,800 traffic citations since the task force began operating in Memphis on Sept. 29.
Illinois senators denied entry to ICE building
Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth said they were denied access Friday to the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, a site of confrontations between protesters and federal agents.
“It is appalling that two United States senators are not allowed to visit this facility,” Duckworth said. “What are you afraid of?”
The senators said they have congressional oversight authority.
“Something is going on in there they don’t want us to see,” Durbin said. “I don’t know what it is.”
Illinois judge blocks troop deployment
An appeals court ruled Saturday that troops Trump sent to Illinois can remain there under federal control but can’t be deployed, and granted a pause in the case until it hears further arguments.
The ruling came two days after U.S. District Judge April Perry in Chicago blocked the deployment of troops in Chicago for at least two weeks. The Justice Department appealed the next day.
The judge said the Trump administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which assures due process and equal protection, when he ordered National Guard troops to the city.
In a written order Friday explaining her rationale, Perry noted the nation’s long aversion to having military involvement in domestic policing.
“Not even the Founding Father most ardently in favor of a strong federal government” – Alexander Hamilton – “believed that one state’s militia could be sent to another state for the purposes of political retribution,” Perry wrote.
Hamilton called that notion “preposterous.”
“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.
Oregon judge also blocks Trump efforts
Another court battle in Oregon earlier delayed a similar troop deployment to Portland. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in that case Thursday.
Lt. Cmdr. Teresa Meadows, a spokesperson for U.S. Northern Command, said the troops sent to Portland and Chicago are “not conducting any operational activities at this time.”
Troops patrol outside Chicago
Five hundred guard members from Texas and Illinois arrived this week at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago, and have been activated for 60 days.
They started patrolling Thursday morning behind portable fences outside the ICE Broadview facility.
A federal judge late Thursday ordered ICE to remove a separate 8-foot-tall (2.4-meter) fence outside the Broadview facility after the Village of Broadview said it illegally blocks a public street.
Also Thursday, another federal judge in Illinois temporarily ordered federal agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot-control weapons against peaceful protesters and journalists outside the ICE facility, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago.
In Chicago, federal prosecutors have obtained a grand jury indictment against a woman and man accused of using their vehicles to strike and box in a Border Patrol agent’s vehicle last Saturday.
The agent exited his car and fired five shots at Marimar Martinez, 30, who was treated at a hospital. The indictment filed Thursday formalizes charges of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon – a vehicle. Anthony Ruiz, 21, is also charged.
Associated Press reporters across the U.S. contributed, including Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Sophia Tareen and Christine Fernando in Chicago; and Josh Boak and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C.
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