Trump’s lawyers ask the Supreme Court to uphold using the National Guard in Chicago
WASHINGTON— President Trump asked the Supreme Court to uphold his decision on Friday Deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.
His lawyers filed an emergency appeal urging the court to overturn the decisions of judges in Chicago and rule that National Guard troops are needed to protect U.S. immigration officials from hostile protesters.
The case escalates the conflict between Trump and Democratic state officials over immigration enforcement and reopens the issue of military-style use of force in American cities. Trump’s lawyers repeatedly went to the Supreme Court and issued swift rulings when lower court judges blocked Trump’s actions.
Federal law gives the president the authority to call the National Guard into service if he is “unable to enforce the laws of the United States” or faces “insurrection or danger of insurrection against the authority of the United States government.”
“Both conditions are met here,” Trump’s lawyer said.
Judges in Chicago reached the opposite conclusion. U.S. District Judge April Perry said she saw no “danger of rioting” and that the law was being enforced. He accused Trump’s lawyers of exaggerating allegations of violence and equating “protests with riots.”
He filed a restraining order on Oct. 9, and the 7th District Court agreed to keep the order in effect.
But Trump’s lawyers insisted that protesters and demonstrators were targeting US immigration officials, obstructing them from doing their job.
“Faced with the intolerable risk of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law, the President determines that he cannot lawfully enforce the laws of the United States with regular forces and calls up the National Guard to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of continued violence,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the 40-page appeal.
He argued that historically the president has had full authority to decide whether to call in the militia. He said judges cannot second-guess the president’s decision.
“Such a review [by judges] “The 9th Circuit should be extremely respectful as it was decided in the Newsom case,” he said, referring to the decision approving Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles.
Trump’s lawyer said sending troops to Los Angeles was successful in reducing violence.
“Despite California Governor’s claim that deployment of National Guard to Los Angeles would ‘increase tensions'[e]’ Ongoing violence that California itself has failed to prevent… The President’s action had the opposite, intended effect. “In the face of federal military force, violence in Los Angeles has decreased and the situation has improved significantly,” he said.
But in recent weeks, “Chicago has been the site of organized and often violent protests against ICE officers and other federal personnel involved in enforcing federal immigration laws,” he wrote. “Federal officers were also shot and punched by protesters on multiple occasions. … Rioters targeted federal officers with fireworks and threw bottles, rocks, and tear gas at them.”
“More than 30 [DHS] Officers were injured during attacks on federal law enforcement at the Broadview facility alone, resulting in multiple hospitalizations, he wrote.
Authorities in Illinois blamed aggressive enforcement actions by ICE agents for triggering the protests.
Sauer also called on the court to immediately issue an order freezing Perry’s decisions.
The court requested a response from Illinois officials by Monday.
