An Illinois-based federal judge has ruled, for now, that the Trump administration cannot deploy the National Guard to Chicago, saying that the administration’s “perceptions of events are simply unreliable.”
Judge April M. Perry issued her decision on Thursday evening, stating that the administration, “their officers, agents, assigns entered, and all persons acting in concert with them, are temporarily enjoined from ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.”
The order expires in two weeks, but can be extended beyond that time if the city and the state — which jointly sued the White House to block the deployment of troops — can demonstrate a need to keep it going longer.
The White House indicated that it would likely appeal the ruling, with one spokesperson stating that Trump will be “vindicated by a higher court.”
During a court hearing announcing her decision, Perry chided lawyers representing the Trump administration, noting that they failed to cite a legitimate reason to deploy the National Guard in Chicago against the mayor’s and governor’s wishes, and could not demonstrate where limits to their actions may exist.
“I am very much struggling to figure out where this would ever stop,” Perry said at one point, after DOJ lawyers contended their mission was a “limited” one.
The Trump administration claims that troops are needed in Chicago to assist federal agents with their violent deportation campaign, and to address the ambiguous issue of “crime” in the city. While Chicago has a higher crime rate than most cities in the U.S., it has seen a massive drop in violent crime over the past year, and indeed, over the past several years.
In recent months, Trump has increasingly attacked Democratic-run cities whose leaders oppose his authoritarian and anti-immigrant agenda. This past summer, for example, while discussing the possibility of deploying the National Guard to Chicago, Trump posted a meme depicting himself in a spoof of the film “Apocalypse Now,” indicating he planned to go to “war” with the city.
“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump wrote.
Perry noted that the administration had provided “unreliable evidence” to justify its claims that troops were needed at all, which cast “significant doubts on DHS’s credibility on what is going on in the streets of Chicago.” The judge also questioned whether the presence of troops in the city was yielding a net positive, stating during the hearing that the administration was perhaps “only add[ing] fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.”
Christopher Wells, a lawyer representing the Illinois attorney general’s office, said there is “no rebellion in Illinois” that justifies troops being deployed. Perry indicated that she agreed, saying that “DHS’s perceptions of events are simply unreliable.”
She also recognized that federal agents were to blame for much of the violence at protests, noting that, at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago, federal agents were using chemical weapons against protesters in an “arbitrary and indiscriminate” way, according to the local police department.
“There has been evidence submitted that the very presence of federal agents, that the way they’re interacting with the populace, is itself the cause of violence,” Perry added.
Perry’s ruling was praised by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker — both of whom Trump demanded be arrested earlier this week for their opposition to his plan to militarize Chicago.
“This ruling is a win for the people of Chicago and the rule of law,” Johnson said in a post on X, adding:
Trump’s deployment is illegal, unconstitutional, dangerous, and unnecessary. There is no rebellion in Chicago. There are just good people standing up for what is right.
“Donald Trump is not a king — and his administration is not above the law,” Pritzker said in his own social media post. “Today, the court confirmed what we all know: there is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago.”
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