National Guard troops were anticipated to start patrolling in Memphis on Friday, following a day after a federal judge in Illinois halted the deployment of troops in the Chicago region for a minimum of two weeks.
The fluctuating deployments arise from a political and legal dispute concerning President Donald Trump’s drive to send the National Guard to numerous U.S. cities. His administration insists crime rates are soaring in these cities, though statistics don’t consistently support this claim.
If a president evokes the Insurrection Act, they can authorize active duty military to intervene in states that fail to quell an uprising or defy federal law, however, the judge in Chicago stated Thursday she did not find significant evidence of a “danger of rebellion” in Illinois amidst Trump’s immigration measures.
The ruling offered a victory for Democratic officials who lead the state and city.
“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 stated.
In Tennessee, where Republican Gov. Bill Lee favors the deployment, the troops are expected to act as “additional eyes and ears” around Memphis, assisting local, state, and federal agencies, as indicated on a city website.
The directive in Illinois is set to lapse on Oct. 23 at 11:59 p.m., and U.S. District Judge April Perry has scheduled an Oct. 22 hearing to decide if it should be prolonged for another 14 days.
In her ruling, she said the administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which assures due process and equal protection.
It wasn’t clear what the 500 Guard members from Texas and Illinois would do next. They were mostly stationed at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. A small number on Thursday were outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview, which for weeks has been home to occasional clashes between protesters and federal agents.
Officials at U.S. Northern Command directed questions to the Department of Defense, which cited its policy of not commenting on ongoing litigation. The troops are under the U.S. Northern Command and had been activated for 60 days.
U.S. Justice Department lawyer Eric Hamilton had said Thursday that the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government law enforcers in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”
The city and state have called the deployments unnecessary and illegal.
Also Thursday, a federal appeals court heard arguments over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building.
A judge on Sunday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the move. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after the judge first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.
Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.
Chicago’s federal court issued other decisions this week related to immigration enforcement. In one, a judge said immigration agents have repeatedly violated a 2022 consent decree outlining how ICE can make so-called warrantless arrests. That decree requires ICE to show documentation for each arrest it makes for people besides those being targeted.
The president previously sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington.
In a California case, a judge in September said the deployment was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained and the judge did not order them to leave.
___
Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit, Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia, Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.
