Illinois and Chicago filed a lawsuit Oct. 6 seeking to block President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the city, calling it an “illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional” use of federal power.
“Defendants’ deployment of federalized troops to Illinois is patently unlawful,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs ask this court to halt the illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional federalization of members of the National Guard of the United States, including both the Illinois and Texas National Guard.”
According to the filing, up to 300 Illinois National Guard members were federalized Oct. 4 by the Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth despite Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s objection. A separate memo issued Oct. 5 shows Trump also authorized up to 400 Texas National Guard troops for deployment in Chicago, Portland, and other cities “where needed.”
“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the complaint reads.
The deployment followed a week of violent clashes between federal agents and protestors during immigration raids in the Chicago area. Tensions spiked after a Sept. 30 pre-dawn operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting suspected Tren de Aragua gang members, according to ABC7. Several residents described the raid as traumatic to ABC7, alleging that children were zip-tied together and that some people were detained without immigration-related charges.
On Oct. 4, Border Patrol agents reportedly called the Chicago Police Department (CPD) for backup after being “rammed and surrounded” by protesters. FOX News reported that an internal dispatch showed officers were ordered by their chief of patrol not to respond — a claim that CPD disputes. Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Oct. 6 that officers did respond, noting that 27 officers were affected by the tear gas deployed by federal agents.
The lawsuit contends the deployment “is based on a flimsy pretext: protests outside a two-story ICE processing facility in Broadview, a suburb of Chicago.”
Pritzker, a Democrat, condemned the move as “Trump’s invasion,” saying in an Oct. 5 statement that no federal officials contacted him directly before the deployment. The following day, he announced the lawsuit and called the deployment “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
At a press conference Oct. 6, Pritzker said that “families have been snatched up off the streets or removed from their homes, zip tied and detained for hours, including especially U.S. citizens,” and later added that “peaceful protesters have been hit with tear gas and shot with rubber bullets. Journalists simply reporting the facts on the ground have been targeted and arrested.”
He accused the Trump administration of following “a playbook: cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob” in order to “create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act so that he can send military troops to our city.”
The lawsuit asks the court to block further federalization or deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois and to declare the broader practice unlawful.
On Oct. 6, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also signed an executive order establishing “ICE Free Zones” on all city-owned properties, which bans ICE agents from using municipal facilities for civil enforcement operations.
Illinois’ case follows a similar challenge from Oregon officials over National Guard deployments to Portland. According to FOX, on Oct. 5, a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration from sending federally controlled National Guard units from other states to Portland. The White House is appealing this decision.
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