The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow the president to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area, setting up a high-stakes test for whether the justices will temporarily bless his efforts to send the state-based military forces onto the streets of American cities.
Justice Department lawyers asked the Supreme Court to lift lower-court orders blocking the deployment, saying the mobilization is needed to “prevent ongoing and intolerable risks to the lives and safety” of federal agents. The administration wants to station National Guard troops from Texas and Illinois outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center, where protesters have gathered.
State and local officials have objected to the use of the military in their streets, saying it is an unconstitutional infringement on state power and that the troops’ presence could inflame protests against President Trump’s immigration policies in the Chicago area.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has ordered the National Guard to Portland, Ore.; Los Angeles; and Washington over the objections of state and local leaders. The state-based troops are typically deployed in their own states at the request of governors to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters. The federalization effort by the president for domestic policing has prompted legal challenges accusing the Trump administration of exceeding its authority.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices in a court filing on Friday that federal agents have been “met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law.”
In addition, he asserted that Mr. Trump’s decision to federalize the guard is not subject to judicial review.
Lower court judges have largely rejected that assessment in issuing temporary orders against the administration.
In Illinois, Judge April M. Perry of the U.S. District Court for the state’s northern district temporarily blocked the deployments on Oct. 8. She wrote that the law allows the federalization of the guard to suppress rebellion but she had seen “no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed with her reasoning. The panel recognized that the federal government has a strong interest in protecting its agents and property. But the judges — nominated by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama and Mr. Trump in his first term — said there was insufficient evidence that protest activity in Illinois had significantly impaired the ability of federal officers to carry out immigration laws. Federal facilities have remained open, and officers have contained sporadic disruptions.
A protest does not “become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest,” the appeals court said.
In addition, the judges pointed to the use of National Guard members from Texas as “an incursion on Illinois’s sovereignty.”
The judges said the public has “a significant interest in having only well-trained law enforcement officers deployed in their communities and avoiding unnecessary shows of military force in their neighborhoods, except when absolutely necessary and justified by law.”
Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington.
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