Judge Temporarily Bars Trump Administration From Deploying National Guard in Illinois
A U.S. federal judge temporarily restrained the Trump administration from further deploying National Guard troops in Chicago over the governor’s objection.
“I have seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” said Judge April M. Berry, rejecting a main argument for the Trump administration to deploy the National Guard troops.
U.S. President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops from Texas earlier this week to the Chicago area to protect federal agents—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents working in the city. Trump also sought to deploy the Illinois National Guard, but Illinois Governor JB Pritzker—the commander-in-chief of the Illinois National Guard—objected to the move. But Trump federalized the Illinois troops to deploy them anyways. The military personnel were spotted patrolling on Thursday near an ICE facility in Chicago’s western suburbs.
Illinois filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from deploying its National Guard troops and on Thursday evening, Berry issued a verbal temporary restraining order on the matter. Politico reported that Perry described the administration’s “narrative of violence as exaggerated” in response to peaceful protests of immigration enforcement activities and warned that National Guard troops are not trained in de-escalation to handle civil protests.
On X (formerly known as Twitter), Illinois Governor Pritzker wrote that Berry’s restraining order shows that the Trump administration is not above the law.
“Today, the court confirmed what we all know: there is no credible evidence of rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Pritzker added.
The temporary restraining order expires at midnight on 23 October and Berry wrote that federal officials are “temporarily enjoined from ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois,” according to a copy of the order obtained by Security Management.
Berry “indicated that the wording was intended to prevent officials from sending in troops from another state’s Guard,” The New York Times reported. The judge also said that the National Guard’s presence in Illinois was likely to make a tense situation in the state worse.
“I find that allowing the National Guard to deploy at the Broadview processing center or anywhere else in Illinois will only add fuel to the fire,” Berry said.
The Trump administration filed an appeal Thursday evening of the temporary restraining order with the Seventh Circuit.
At the heart of the case is the Posse Comitatus Act, a criminal statute that prevents the military from enforcing domestic law in the United States. There are exceptions to the law, though. Congress can vote to suspend it, the president can suspend it to defend the U.S. Constitution, or the president can invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy troops to respond to invasions, rebellions, or local authorities’ failure to maintain order.
“National Guard members are under state authority and commanded by governors, so they’re generally exempt,” the Associated Press (AP) reported. “However, the Posse Comitatus Act applies to National Guard forces when they’re ‘federalized,’ meaning the president puts them under his control.”
The Trump administration first tested the use of the Insurrection Act to deploy National Guards troops in U.S. states without their governors’ permission in June 2025 in California. A lower court judge ruled that the Trump administration’s actions were “illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” according to previous Security Management coverage.
Berry’s temporary restraining order comes at the same time that Trump is attempting to send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon. A lower court judge temporarily blocked the president from deploying troops to the city, and an appellate court held a hearing on the case on Thursday.
“In court, Oregon prosecutors described Trump’s desire to summon the military to U.S. cities as a worrisome breach of power from the executive branch, which one judge on the panel referred to as a ‘slippery slope,’” the BBC reported. “State lawyers argued that protests in Portland did not meet the standard required for military intervention, describing the protests as ‘less than 30 people’ and ‘largely sedate.’”
Meanwhile, National Guard troops continue to be deployed in Washington, D.C., and were also observed patrolling the streets alongside local police in Memphis, Tennessee.
