National guard begins Memphis patrols as senators in Illinois are turned away from Ice facility | US immigration
As National Guard troops patrolled Tennessee’s second-largest city, Memphis, for the first time on Friday, Democratic U.S. senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth said they were barred from visiting an immigration enforcement building near Chicago.
Senators stopped by the facility in suburban Broadview on Friday, demanding a tour of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility and the delivery of supplies to protesters who have been demonstrating in the area for weeks.
Their visit coincides with a decision to remove the fences installed on the site. A federal judge late Thursday ordered Ice to remove the 8-foot-tall fence outside the Broadview facility after the Village of Broadview said it illegally blocked a public street.
While there, both senators spoke to the local NBC News affiliate and pressed for answers and an inspection of conditions inside the facility.
“We just want to go in and look at the facility and see what the conditions are, they won’t let us in. It’s a shame,” Duckworth said.
“They refused to tell us this information,” Durbin said. “I’ve been doing this job for a few years now, and I’ve never seen a presidential administration build such a wall against me.”
“What are you afraid of?” Duckworth told reporters, referring to the government. “When you’re proud of what you do, you don’t hide, you don’t run away.”
Senators have said they have congressional oversight authority.
“There’s something going on there that they don’t want us to see,” Durbin said. “I don’t know what happened.”
To the south, in Tennessee, at least nine armed guards began patrolling Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, a Memphis landmark about a mile (1.6 km) from historic Beale Street and FedExForum, where the NBA Grizzlies play.
They were also at a nearby tourist welcome center along the Mississippi River. The troops, wearing protective clothing and protective vests with the word “military police” written on them, took photos with the visitors, accompanied by a local police officer.
Trump has also sent or discussed sending troops to other cities, including Baltimore; District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The federal government says troops support immigration officers and protect federal property.
Guard units in Memphis remain under the command of Republican governor Bill Lee, who supports using them to advance a federal crackdown on crime.
Trump, in response, sought to deploy national guard troops, including those from Texas and California, after taking control of Portland and Chicago, despite state and local leaders saying such intervention violated their sovereignty and federal law. Federal courts in Illinois and Oregon this week blocked Trump’s efforts to send troops to those cities.
April Perry, a U.S. district judge in Chicago, said the Trump administration violated the 10th Amendment, which gives states certain powers, and the 14th Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection, when it ordered the dispatch of National Guard troops to that city.
Explaining his reasoning in his written order on Friday, Perry stated that the country has long been reluctant to intervene militarily in internal policing activities.
“Even the Founding Father, who most fervently advocated a strong federal government, did not believe that one state’s militia could be sent to another state for political revenge,” Perry wrote, referring to Alexander Hamilton.
“The court confirmed what we all knew: There is no credible evidence of an insurrection in the state of Illinois. And there is no place for the national guard on the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Illinois governor JB Pritzker said.
An earlier court battle in Oregon had delayed a similar troop deployment to Portland. The 9th U.S. circuit court of appeals heard arguments in that case on Thursday.
Lt. Commander Teresa Meadows, spokeswoman for the U.S. northern command, said the troops sent to Portland and Chicago “are not currently conducting any operational activities.”
