Supreme Court Justice Alito dissents on Trump National Guard block

Justice Samuel Alito criticized the Supreme Court majority in a sharp dissent Tuesday after the high court ruled 6-3 to temporarily block President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago.

Alito said the high court’s majority made “unwise” and “imprudent” findings in reaching the decision. The majority showed insufficient respect for Trump after the president found that agitators were preventing immigration officers and other federal personnel from doing their jobs in Chicago and that the National Guard had to step in to help.

“Regardless of what the current administration thinks about enforcing immigration laws or the way ICE conducts its operations, federal officers should not be denied protection from potentially deadly attacks,” Alito said. he wrote.

AT THE END OF THE STRIKE, WHERE DOES THE COURT FIGHT OVER THE TRUMP ADMIN’S D.C. NATIONAL GUARD STAND?

The case stemmed from Trump’s invocation of a rarely used federal law to federalize nearly 300 National Guard members and assign them to protect federal personnel and buildings.

The Trump administration has argued that protesters blocked, assaulted and threatened ICE officers, and the administration has argued that the National Guard was needed because Illinois’ resilient Democratic leaders and local law enforcement did not adequately address the issue.

Illinois sued, and lower courts blocked the deployment of the National Guard, finding that Trump did not meet the law’s criteria that state the president can use reserved forces only when “unable to enforce the laws of the United States with regular forces.” The Supreme Court’s decision upheld that finding while the case continues in the courts.

The Supreme Court majority said in an unsigned order that “regular forces” meant the U.S. military, not ICE or other civilian law enforcement. The majority said that since Trump had not identified any justification in Chicago for using the regular military for domestic purposes, there was no way to exhaust that option without using the National Guard.

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The Department of Homeland Security criticized Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker (R) for not being proactive in responding to the chaotic anti-ICE protest in Broadview, Illinois. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images and Jon Stegenga via Storyful)

Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented, saying the majority had prematurely raised and conceded an “eleventh-hour debate” about the meaning of “regular forces.” Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a separate dissenting opinion.

The majority also took issue with the law’s language regarding law enforcement, saying that if National Guard soldiers were merely protecting federal officers, that wouldn’t amount to law enforcement.

The majority said that if the National Guard was enforcing the law, it could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally says the military cannot act as a local police force unless Congress authorizes it.

Alito, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said he found it “surprising” that the majority thought the Posse Comitatus Act made so much sense and that the president could use the military for “a variety of domestic purposes.” Alito wrote that the Constitution allows the president to use the military to respond to war, insurrection or “other serious emergency.”

The conservative justice also warned of the wider implications of the majority decision; Trump has sought to deploy the National Guard to other cities as part of a crackdown on immigration enforcement and street crime. The president also faced legal challenges in California and Portland, Oregon, but the Chicago case was the furthest through the court system.

A protester waves an American and Mexican flag during a protest in Compton, California, on June 7, 2025, after federal immigration officials conducted operations. (Ethan Swope/Associated Press)

Requiring Trump to exhaust other military forces before using the National Guard would lead to “weird consequences,” Alito said.

“Under the Court’s interpretation, National Guard members may detain and process aliens subject to deportation, but they do not have the legal authority to perform purely protective functions,” Alito wrote. he wrote. “Our country has traditionally been cautious about using soldiers as internal police, but comfortable using them for purely protective purposes.”

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Illinois maintained that ICE protests were mostly peaceful and that local law enforcement contained the unrest. State prosecutors argued that the state would suffer irreversible damage if the courts did not prevent Trump from using the National Guard.

“The planned deployment would violate Illinois’ sovereign interest in regulating and supervising its own law enforcement activities,” the attorneys wrote, adding that Illinois’ “sovereign right to use law enforcement resources where it sees fit is the type of ‘intangible and immeasurable interest’ that courts have deemed irreparable.”