Trump administration lawyers said in a statement late Wednesday that escalating violence against immigration officers during the ongoing Operation Midway Blitz justifies the deployment of National Guard troops to protect against “the danger of insurrection against federal authority” that impedes “the ability of federal officials to enforce federal law.”
The Trump administration's response to the state's legal challenge to issue an emergency restraining order against the deployment will be a big day in federal court. U.S. District Judge April Perry was scheduled to hear arguments in the case starting at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where a packed courtroom had been set up to accommodate the expected national media frenzy.
In its 59-page document, the Justice Department cited recent protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview, charges against people accused of ramming Border Patrol vehicles on the city's southwest side, resulting in agents fatally shooting a woman, and a case brought against an alleged Chicago gang member accusing him of assigning a $10,000 bounty on the head of Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief in charge of Chicago. operation.
“Violent acts and threats by large numbers of protesters directed at those who enforce federal immigration laws and federal property pose, at the very least, a risk of insurrection against federal authority and significantly limit the ability of federal officials to enforce federal law,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Seeking an emergency restraining order, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office on Monday asked a federal court to rule the federalization and deployment of National Guard troops unconstitutional and block Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from deploying troops to the state over Gov. J.B. Pritzker's objections.
“The illegal actions of the Trump Administration have already caused and are causing serious and irreparable harm to Illinois. Deploying federal National Guard, including from out of state, infringes on Illinois' sovereignty and right to self-government,” the AG said in a statement.
At the trial's first hearing Monday, Perry, a Biden-era appointee whose previous nomination as U.S. attorney was blocked by then-Sen. J.D. Vance for apparently political reasons, said she was “very concerned” about the Trump administration's failure to answer questions such as where in Illinois the Guard members would be sent. But she said she could not rule on the state's request to temporarily block the rollout without first reviewing the voluminous court filings.
Thursday's trial is expected to be lengthy, with dozens of groups on all sides, from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the nation's law enforcement agencies, asked to weigh in. It's unclear whether Perry will rule on the matter Thursday or issue a written opinion later, but all parties involved know time is of the essence.
The Defense Department has taken steps in recent days to federalize 300 Illinois National Guard members despite Pritzker's opposition, as well as 400 Guard members from Texas. About half of the Guard members from Texas are expected to eventually be deployed to Illinois, with the support of Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Absent a court order blocking their deployment, like the ones a federal judge in Oregon issued over the weekend barring the federalization of Guard troops from that state or any other, it was unclear what more Illinois officials could do to protect the state from invasion. Pritzker has long said the law would be on the state's side to curb such a deployment, but troops began arriving after Perry refused to immediately intervene.
National Guard members were first seen Tuesday on federal property in Elwood, near Joliet. There were reports that Guard protection had begun at other federal installations late Wednesday, but there was no immediate sign of troops arriving at Broadview.
Raoul said during a news conference Monday that his office acted as quickly as possible to build the state's case against Trump. Meanwhile, Pritzker continues to vehemently oppose Trump's proposal to use military troops in the state.
“There is no invasion here. There is no insurrection here. Local and state law enforcement are working and administering what they need to do,” Pritzker said Monday. “Donald Trump is using our military personnel as political props and pawns in his illegal efforts to militarize our nation’s cities.”
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump suggested he could invoke the Insurrection Act if necessary to circumvent court orders or uncooperate officials.
“If I had to accept it, I would do it if people were being killed and we were being detained by the courts or we were being detained by governors or mayors,” he said.
A White House spokeswoman reiterated that Trump was exercising “his lawful authority to protect federal officials and assets.”
Given Trump's week-long flirtation with sending troops to Chicago and his changing motivations, which began ostensibly about combating violent crime in the city but has since evolved to defend immigration enforcement operations amid the “Operation Midway Blitz,” “the fabricated nature of the crisis is clear,” the state argues in its filing.
“The American people, no matter where they live, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, especially not simply because the leadership of their city or state fell out of favor with the President,” the Illinois Attorney General’s Office wrote.
The state filing notes Trump's long history of making “threatening and derogatory statements” against Illinois and Chicago, as well as city and state leaders, dating back to before he entered the 2016 presidential race.
“The purported current emergency is belied by the fact that Trump’s threats to deploy troops to Chicago began more than a decade ago,” the state said. “In a social media post from 2013, Trump writes: “We need our troops on the streets of Chicago, not in Syria.”
Animosity toward Illinois and Chicago continued throughout his first term in the White House and into his second term, the state said, culminating in a Sept. 30 address to top military leaders at the Pentagon in which Trump told the assembled generals that he had told Hegseth, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard, but military because we're going to Chicago very soon.”
In making its case, the attorney general's office pointed to recent court decisions in federal court in Oregon, where a Trump-appointed judge to the bench issued two orders blocking the federalization of that state's Guard and the subsequent deployment of Guard members from neighboring California or any other state.
In his memo, Hegseth told Texas officials that Trump has “authorized me to coordinate with you to mobilize up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard” under Title 10, which allows State Guard troops to be placed under federal command under orders “issued through the Governor.”
On social media Sunday evening, Abbott, who has clashed with Pritzker repeatedly over the past several years, wrote: “You can either fully protect federal workers or get out of the way and let the Texas Guard do it.”
At the heart of the conflict over troop deployment in Illinois is the Trump administration's assertion that there is an emergency that justifies such action.
The move also comes amid Trump's long-running criticism of Illinois and Chicago laws that bar law enforcement from cooperating with federal authorities on civil immigration matters. Earlier this year, a federal judge in Chicago dismissed the administration's lawsuit challenging the policy.
The administration has recently pointed to incidents, including heated protests outside its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the western suburb of Broadview, to justify the use of troops. In a Sept. 26 memo to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security requested 100 troops to protect ICE facilities in Illinois from a “coordinated attack by violent groups.”
In his weekend memo to members of the Texas Guard, Hegseth wrote: “On October 4, 2025, the President determined that violent incidents, as well as a credible threat of continued violence, are impeding the enforcement of the laws of the United States in Illinois, Oregon and other locations throughout the United States.”
But in its filing Monday, the state reiterated the position Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other Democratic Party leaders have taken since Trump raised the specter of a late-summer deployment, arguing that no such emergency exists and that using military personnel as the administration has proposed would violate the Posse Act Comitatus, which prohibits the use of federal troops to maintain civil law and order.
In the lawsuit and public comments, Illinois officials accused federal authorities of inciting conflict, including by using “abusive tactics” against protesters and others in Broadview.
“The Broadview protests were not lawless, they were small, largely peaceful and, unfortunately, escalated by DHS's own actions, seemingly intended to be used as a pretext for Trump's long-announced troop deployment to Chicago,” the state argued in its statement.
The state's lawsuit also turned the Trump administration's boasts into undermining its argument that troops are needed, citing statements touting the successes of recent immigration enforcement efforts and a “confident show of force” on Sept. 28 in which “dozens of DHS agents dressed in tactical gear and armed with semi-automatic rifles walked the streets of downtown city” as proof that there was no emergency that would require the deployment of forces. federal troops.
In a show of unity, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, a veteran wounded in combat in Iraq, and all 14 Democratic members of the state's congressional delegation sent a letter to Trump urging the president to change course.
A picture of what a potential force deployment in Illinois could look like became clearer Monday through court records and information from local officials.
The filing in the Illinois lawsuit showed that Maj. Gen. Rodney Boyd, commander of the Illinois National Guard, said Sunday evening that he believed federal officials intended to send a total of 500 National Guard members to Illinois, according to a statement filed with the lawsuit by Lt. Gov. Bria Scudder, chief Pritzker's assistant.
Of those, 300 will be members of the Illinois National Guard and the rest will be members of the Texas National Guard “discharged from border duty,” Scudder told Boyd.
In a statement late Wednesday, Trump's lawyers said federal officials “undoubtedly have a substantial and tangible interest in protecting their property and personnel from harm” and that the temporary restraining order should be denied.
“Plaintiffs ask the court to reconsider the President's views on the current situation in Illinois and to oversee his deployment of Federal Guardsmen, which could endanger federal officers (and others),” the lawsuit states. “But responsibility and accountability for these decisions should lie with the political branches of the federal government, not with this court.”
Tribune reporter Tess Kenney contributed to this story.
