By Diana Novak Jones
CHICAGO (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to put a hold on a court ruling that temporarily blocks the deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois while it appeals.
The ruling will allow a temporary restraining order against the deployment entered by U.S. District Judge April Perry in Chicago on October 9 to remain in place.
Perry had sided with Illinois, finding that immigration-related protests did not amount to a “rebellion” requiring National Guard intervention.
Perry had entered the temporary restraining order after hearing more than two hours of arguments from lawyers for the U.S. government and the state of Illinois, which sued the Trump administration over the deployment.
It is set to expire on October 23, but Perry has scheduled a hearing for October 22 to consider whether it should be extended.
In an extraordinary use of the U.S. armed forces for domestic purposes, Trump has sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis and Chicago, and announced plans for deployments to Portland.
Democratic-led states and cities have filed lawsuits seeking to halt the deployments, and courts have not yet reached a final decision on Trump’s authority for military action within the United States.
At the October 9 hearing, Perry questioned the credibility of the federal government’s arguments that Guard soldiers were needed to protect federal officers and property from demonstrators. J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, accused Trump of deliberately mischaracterizing small, mostly peaceful protests as violent and dangerous in order to justify National Guard deployments.
Perry said the behavior of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers has prompted the protests, and deploying Guard soldiers to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview would “only add fuel to the fire that defendants themselves have started.”
The Trump administration quickly appealed the order and asked the appellate court for an emergency stay to immediately allow the deployment. On Saturday, the appellate court rejected the Trump administration’s request but said that National Guard troops already in Illinois did not have to return to their home states until a court said so.
(Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Lisa Shumaker)
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