The Trump administration has made an urgent appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking approval for the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago.
This request represents the first instance where Trump’s administration has involved the Supreme Court in its efforts to address crime and immigration issues in Democrat-led cities.
On Friday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer submitted the appeal, contending that prior court decisions blocking the deployment of troops to manage escalating anti-ICE demonstrations in Chicago should be overturned.
Both the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago had initiated legal actions to prevent the federalization of the National Guard.
In his 43-page appeal, Sauer argued that the district judge’s injunction from October 9 should be completely stayed.
He stated, “The injunction unjustly interferes with the President’s authority and unnecessarily jeopardizes federal personnel and property.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker responded to the appeal on social media and accused President Donald Trump of ‘trying to invade Illinois with troops.’
‘We will keep defending the sovereignty of our state,’ he wrote. ‘Militarizing our communities against their will is not only un-American but also leads us down a dangerous path for our democracy.’
President Donald Trump has long decried Chicago as a crime-filled ‘war zone’ and has wanted a federal deployment there since at least the beginning of September
The Trump administration emergency relief application to the Supreme Court asks the justices to overturn earlier rulings preventing National Guard troops from helping local authorities tamp down a growing protest at an ICE facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago
The escalation to the Supreme Court comes a day after a three-judge panel with 7th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously voted to uphold the district judge’s temporary restraining order.
‘Political opposition is not rebellion,’ the judges wrote. ‘The administration has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits at this early stage.’
The judges also said in their order that ‘the federal government has been able to protect federal property and personnel without the National Guard’s help.’
‘[W]e see insufficient evidence of a rebellion or danger of rebellion in Illinois,’ the judges wrote.
‘The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.’
District judges in California and Oregon have recently issued similar denials that blocked federal deployments in those states.
At issue in Illinois are the sustained protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago.
On Friday, at least 15 people were arrested outside the detention center by Illinois State Police, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Authorities had asked demonstrators to stay within designated protest zones, but when people started to advance toward the federal building, dozens of officers wearing helmets and armed with batons began pushing the crowd back.
Pictured: Illinois State Troopers stand in line to guard the Broadview ICE detention center from demonstrators on Friday
Officers are seen detaining a protestor near one of the barriers in front of the federal building
Much of the clashes happened at around 8am, and several troopers tackled and dragging non-compliant protestors away.
Progressive congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh was at the protest and claimed she was struck in the face with a baton. She was among those arrested.
Trump has long wanted to send troops into Chicago and last week, he called the Windy City a ‘war zone’ while talking about the number of gun homicides.
In early September, Trump foreshadowed his desire to step up enforcement in Chicago with a Truth Social post that included an AI-generated image of himself wearing a cowboy hat with military helicopters flying behind him.
‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,’ he wrote.
The line is a reference the movie Apocalypse Now when a character says, ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning.’
The fate of Trump’s National Guard deployment now rests entirely with the Supreme Court, which has ordered responses from Illinois and Chicago officials by Monday evening.
The decision will almost certainly set precedent for how much power Trump and presidents going forward will have to federalize state troops.
