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“Political opposition is not rebellion,” wrote a Seventh Circuit panel, rejecting an attempt by the Trump administration to remove an order by a trial court judge.
Oct. 16, 2025Updated 4:46 p.m. ET
A federal appeals panel on Thursday agreed with a lower court judge who had blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to the Chicago area.
The 18-page preliminary ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concurred with the reasoning of Judge April M. Perry of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, who put a temporary block on deployments in her state on Oct. 8.
“The facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois” under the statute the Trump administration invoked in its attempt to deploy the National Guard, the appeals panel wrote, though it left open the possibility that could change in the future.
The decision means that National Guard troops cannot be stationed on the streets outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview, Ill., where protesters have gathered as the Trump administration has carried out an immigration crackdown in the Chicago area.
“President Trump has exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement over email. “We expect to be vindicated by a higher court.”
The unsigned order was issued by a panel of three judges: Ilana Rovner, David Hamilton and Amy St. Eve. The three judges were nominated to the appellate bench by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump, respectively.
According to an Oct. 4 memo from the White House, ICE facilities in the Chicago area “have come under coordinated assault by violent groups,” which have engaged in “violent demonstrations, intimidation and sabotage” to impede Mr. Trump’s deportation effort. That finding was rejected by Judge Perry, who wrote that administration officials’ “perceptions are not reliable” and that bringing in the military “is likely to lead to civil unrest.”
In its ruling, the appellate panel rejected the government’s argument that a Supreme Court case from 1827 had barred the judiciary from reviewing Mr. Trump’s deployment decision. The old case concerned starkly different circumstances, they found, and nothing in the statute “makes the president the sole judge” of whether it was rightly invoked.
The administration has tried to justify deploying troops by claiming that there is a “rebellion or danger of rebellion” in Chicago, words found in the statute that it says provides a basis for its authority.
The judges disagreed. “Political opposition is not rebellion,” they wrote. “The spirited, sustained and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority.”
Illinois and Chicago officials have vehemently opposed any use of military troops in the streets, and they say the prospect could intensify a growing wave of objections to Mr. Trump’s immigration policies in the Chicago area.
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Some 500 members of the Illinois and Texas National Guards have already been activated in the Chicago area, according to a statement by the military’s Northern Command. Last week, it said the troops “are conducting planning and training” but not “operational activities.”
Neither Judge Perry nor the Seventh Circuit have made a final ruling on the merits of the case, and the ruling on Thursday is unlikely to be the final word in the dispute. The Trump administration could at some point appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Mr. Trump could also invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give him the authority to circumvent the court orders that now block deployments in Illinois and Oregon, and would almost certainly be the subject of another round of lawsuits.
