The Supreme Court last week decided not to overrule a lower court decision that blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area.
Justices on Dec. 23 declined the Trump administration’s emergency request to overturn the earlier ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry. In her ruling, Perry said the Trump administration had no power to use troops to support its immigration crackdown.
Last Tuesday’s ruling was the second defeat for the president’s effort to send troops to assist in its anti-immigration campaign. An appeals court earlier also refused to overturn Perry’s ruling.
Justices heard arguments in the case more than two months ago. The high court order is not a final ruling but it could affect other lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the military in other Democratic-led cities.
“At this preliminary stage, the government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the high court majority wrote.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, said he narrowly agreed with the decision to keep the Chicago deployment blocked.
Three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — publicly dissented.
The outcome was a rare Supreme Court setback for Trump, who had won repeated victories in emergency appeals since he resumed residence in the White House in January.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker applauded Tuesday’s decision as a win for the state and country.
“American cities, suburbs, and communities should not have to face masked federal agents asking for their papers, judging them for how they look or sound, and living in fear that the President can deploy the military to their streets,” he said.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson defended Trump’s decision to activate the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property from “violent rioters.”
Alito and Thomas said in their dissent that the court had no basis to reject Trump’s contention that the administration needed the troops to enforce immigration laws. Gorsuch said he would have narrowly sided with the government based on the declarations of federal law enforcement officials.
The administration originally sought the order to allow the deployment of 300 troops from Illinois and 200 from Texas.
The Trump administration argued that the troops were needed “to protect federal personnel and property from violent resistance against the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
In her ruling, Perry wrote that she found no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois and no reason to believe the protests there had gotten in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Perry initially blocked deployment for two weeks. But in October, she extended the order indefinitely while the Supreme Court reviewed the case.
The Illinois case is the first one of several state legal challenges over National Guard deployments to be ruled on by the high court.
District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen in the nation’s capital.
A federal judge in Oregon has permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there, and all 200 troops from California were being sent home from Oregon, an official said.
A state court in Tennessee ruled in favor of Democratic officials who sued to stop the ongoing Guard deployment in Memphis.
In California, a lower court judge in September said deployment in the Los Angeles area was illegal.
The Trump administration has appealed the California and Oregon rulings to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.