Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS To Intervene After Judicial Block Of National Guard Deployment
The Trump administration is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a lower court injunction that halted the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, arguing that violent resistance to immigration enforcement is putting federal officers in danger and undermining federal law.
In an emergency filing on Friday, Solicitor General John Sauer described a deteriorating situation on the ground in Chicago, where federal agents have faced “coordinated, violent resistance” while attempting to enforce immigration laws.
“This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern,” Sauer wrote. “Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens. Their efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law.”
According to Sauer, the escalation of attacks justifies the president’s use of National Guard forces. The administration’s filing details multiple incidents of violence against federal agents, including ambushes, vehicle rammings, and threats of assassination.
“Federal officers in Chicago have been threatened and assaulted, attacked in a harrowing pre-planned ambush involving many assailants, rammed in their government vehicles, shot at with fireworks and other improvised weapons, injured and hospitalized, and threatened in person and online, including by a $10,000 bounty for the murder of a senior federal official,” the brief states.
The Justice Department argues the lower court’s October 9 injunction interferes with President Trump’s constitutional authority to protect federal personnel and property. “This court should stay the district court’s injunction in its entirety,” the filing says. “The injunction improperly impinges on the President’s authority and needlessly endangers federal personnel and property.”
The Supreme Court has ordered city and state officials to respond to the administration’s emergency request by Monday evening. The outcome could set a major precedent regarding federal authority to deploy troops in urban centers to assist with immigration enforcement and civil unrest.