The Midwestern US state of Illinois, along with its capital Chicago, filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of hundreds of National Guard troops.
Illinois state Attorney General Kwame Raoul accused President Donald Trump of using US troops “to punish his political enemies.”
The lawsuit comes as Trump announced over the weekend that he would be .
It all comes in the wake of a federal judge ruling late on Sunday that .
A Democratic-led state, Illinois has come into conflict with Donald Trump, as its governor JB Pritzker has pushed back against Trump’s threat to deploy troops in the state.
Residents of Chicago have protested against Trump and the presence of federal immigration officers in the city.
Pritzker told US broadcaster CNN that Republicans are seeking to “create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops.”
The White House reiterated that troops were needed to protect federal government employees from “violent riots” in Chicago.
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
Illinois rejects ‘threat of occupation’
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the plan to send troops to Chicago.
She told US broadcaster Fox News that Chicago, the third-largest city in the US, was “a war zone.”
But Illinois argues that the Trump administration is violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law which sharply limits the use of the military for domestic enforcement.
The lawsuit also argues Trump’s actions violate the US Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which protects states’ rights.
They accused Trump of deploying the military to the state based on a “flimsy pretext” that alleges an facility in a suburb of Chicago needs protecting, due to consistent protests outside the building.
“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” they lawsuit said.
“Far from promoting public safety in the Chicago region,” they wrote, Trump’s “provocative and arbitrary actions have threatened to undermine public safety by inciting a public outcry.”
Edited by: Wesley Rahn
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