Supreme Court keeps block on National Guard deployment in Chicago
The Supreme Court has denied President Donald Trump's request to lift a lower court injunction against his deployment of National Guard troops in Chicago and across Illinois to support immigration enforcement operations.
In an unsigned order Tuesday, the court explained simply that the president has "failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois."
The ruling, by an apparent 6-3 vote, keeps blocked the administration's attempt to deploy 300 Illinois National Guard members to Chicago assigned to assist federal immigration agents and protect federal property while litigation continues.
It also calls into question the legality of current and future Guard deployments by Trump in other states as part of his nationwide immigration crackdown. (The Washington, D.C., deployment is likely not affected by this decision, legal analysts said, because of the unique nature of the federal district.)
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
The White House said nothing in today's ruling "detracts" from Trump's core agenda aimed at protecting federal personnel and enforcing immigration laws.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement about the ruling, "[Trump] activated the National Guard to protect federal law enforcement officers, and to ensure rioters did not destroy federal buildings and property. Nothing in today’s ruling detracts from that core agenda."
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker praised the court’s decision.
"This is an important step in curbing the Trump Administration's consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism," Pritzker said in a series of posts on X. "American cities, suburbs, and communities should not have to faced masked federal agents asking for their papers, judging them for how they look or sound, and living in fear that President can deploy the military to their streets."
The court's decision turned on the meaning of a single phrase in Section 12406 of the federal code, which says a president can deploy members of a state’s National Guard when he is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States."
Trump administration attorneys argued that "regular forces" include federal law enforcement officers -- such as DHS and ICE agents -- and that they required reinforcements in Chicago to execute the laws.
But a majority of members of the court concluded "regular forces" likely refers to active-duty military, which can only be legally deployed domestically in a narrow list of circumstances, such to quell insurrections.
"Before the President can federalize the Guard," the court wrote, "he likely must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be 'unable' with those forces to perform that function."
In short: Because Trump had not first legally deployed regular military to support law enforcement, he had no basis to deploy the Guard, at least under the federal law he invoked, the court said.
Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is generally prohibited from engaging in domestic law enforcement, with a few narrow exceptions, including deployments under the Insurrection Act, which Trump has not invoked.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who agreed with the court's decision but said he would have done so on narrower grounds, wrote a separate statement to underscore that Trump has other legal options to protect federal personnel and property should he need to use them, including use of the regular armed forces.
"One apparent ramification of the Court’s opinion is that it could cause the President to use the U.S. military more than the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property in the United States," Kavanaugh observed.
In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said the court had gone too far in limiting the president's power as commander in chief.
"Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted," Alito wrote.
Trump has described Chicago as a "war zone" and fixated on protests against immigration agents conducting field operations and outside a migrant detention facility outside the city.
Outside of Illinois, the president has deployed Guard members to Tennessee, Oregon, California and the nation's capital. Troops are only actively on the streets in Memphis, Los Angeles and D.C., according to the Department of War.
ABC News' Michelle Stoddart and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
