Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s National Guard Deployment in Chicago Area

A federal judge in Illinois issued a temporary restraining order on Thursday evening blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area, days after the president called up soldiers over the Democratic governor’s objection.

The judge, April M. Perry, a Biden appointee, said in court that “I have seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois,” rejecting one of the administration’s stated reasons for the deployment.

Judge Perry’s decision came after a lengthy hearing in Federal District Court in downtown Chicago, about 13 miles from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the western suburbs where members of the Texas National Guard were spotted earlier on Thursday. In addition to the Texas troops sent to Illinois, the president also placed members of the Illinois National Guard under federal command.

Lawyers for the federal government described the Illinois mobilization as necessary for preserving the safety of federal agents, and argued that the president’s judgment in deploying the Guard was not reviewable by the court. The state attorney general’s office called the administration’s positions “startling, unbounded, limitless and not in accord with our system of ordered liberty.”

A lawyer for the Trump administration said in court that he objected to the temporary restraining order. On Thursday night, the government filed a notice of appeal. Officials with the Justice Department, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Judge Perry’s temporary restraining order is in effect for 14 days and says that federal officials are “temporarily enjoined from ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.” She indicated that the wording was intended to prevent officials from sending in troops from another state’s Guard. She declined a request by the administration to stay her ruling.

It was not immediately clear how the Trump administration would respond to the judge’s ruling, or what would happen with the troops already mobilized and deployed in Illinois.

The deployment in Illinois came amid weeks of escalating tension between the president and the state’s Democratic leaders, and after similar efforts by the president to send troops into Democratic-led California and Oregon. A federal appellate panel held a hearing on the Oregon case on Thursday, following a lower-court judge’s decision to temporarily block the National Guard from deploying onto the streets of Portland.

In the Chicago area, the military mobilization came during an immigration enforcement blitz that has infuriated local officials and set off protests that have sometimes turned violent. Federal officials said they arrested hundreds of people who are in the country illegally during that campaign. Earlier this week, President Trump suggested that Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, both Democrats, “should be in jail” for what he described as “failing to protect ICE Officers!”

Judge Perry, who declined to immediately block the deployment during a previous hearing on Monday, pressed a lawyer for the Trump administration on Thursday about the rationale for sending the National Guard and the extent of its duties in Illinois.

The administration’s lawyer, Eric Hamilton, described the current scope as a “limited mission” of defending federal property and federal agents, but he would not commit to the mission remaining limited to those functions.

“I am very much struggling to figure out where this would ever stop,” Judge Perry said.

Mr. Hamilton described what the federal government saw as a breakdown in law and order in Illinois, noting clashes between protesters and agents at the suburban ICE facility in Broadview, among other incidents. He told Judge Perry that “the president decided to federalize guardsmen here in Illinois to respond to the urgent need for safety for law enforcement personnel and property.”

Judge Perry said that she believed the Guard’s presence was likely to make things worse.

“I find that allowing the National Guard to deploy at the Broadview processing center or anywhere else in Illinois will only add fuel to the fire,” the judge said.

Mr. Hamilton argued that Mr. Trump was authorized to call up the Guard under a provision of federal law that allows him to do so when “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States” or when “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Much of the hearing on Thursday focused on definitions of “rebellion” and “regular forces,” and on whether the situation in Illinois was grave enough for troops to be deployed.

Christopher Wells, a lawyer from the Illinois attorney general’s office, accused the Trump administration of “disregard to the actual conditions on the ground in Illinois,” adding that “there is no rebellion in Illinois.”

Judge Perry later said she agreed, and that she had doubts about some of the statements federal officials had submitted, citing other recent cases where the Department of Homeland Security’s actions or versions of events had been called into question. She said there was growing evidence that “D.H.S.’s perceptions of events are simply unreliable.”

Even as an appeal loomed, Illinois officials celebrated the ruling. The state attorney general, Kwame Raoul, called it “a victory for the rule of law.” Mayor Johnson said there was no rebellion, “just good people standing up for what is right.” And Governor Pritzker said there was “no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago.”

Robert Chiarito and Mattathias Schwartz contributed reporting.