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Illinois filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging President Donald Trump's decision to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, marking the second legal setback in as many days for the administration's military enforcement strategy.
The suit, filed by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul alongside Chicago city counsel, seeks to halt the deployment of 700 National Guard soldiers that Trump authorized over the weekend despite opposition from Democratic leaders including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker.
The legal challenge comes just one day after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked a similar troop deployment to Portland, dealing an initial blow to Trump's expanded use of military personnel in major cities.
In court documents, Illinois officials accused the president of weaponizing federal troops "to punish his political enemies," arguing that citizens "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 state contends Trump's actions threaten rather than enhance public safety by "inciting a public outcry" through what they characterized as "provocative and arbitrary actions."
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has defended the Chicago deployment, describing the nation's third-largest city as "a war zone" that requires federal intervention.
Governor Pritzker pushed back against that characterization during a CNN appearance, accusing Republicans of seeking to "create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops."
Public opinion appears divided on the military deployments. A CBS poll released Sunday showed 58 percent of Americans oppose sending National Guard units to U.S. cities, though Trump has shown no signs of retreating from the strategy.
Speaking last week about using military force for what he termed a "war from within," Trump on Sunday made unsubstantiated claims about Portland, falsely stating that the city is "burning to the ground" with "insurrectionists all over the place."
The Illinois lawsuit follows Saturday's federal court ruling in Portland, where District Judge Karin Immergut temporarily blocked troop deployment after finding the president's justification "simply untethered to the facts."
"This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law," wrote Immergut, notably a Trump appointee, in her decision.
While acknowledging scattered attacks on federal officers and property in Portland, the judge ruled the administration failed to demonstrate "that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Monday that the administration is appealing the Portland ruling, dismissing the judge's opinion as "untethered in reality and in the law."
"The president wants to ensure that our federal buildings and our assets are protected and that's exactly what he's trying to do," Leavitt said.
The legal battles come amid rising tensions in Chicago, where a federal officer shot a motorist Saturday in what the Department of Homeland Security described as an incident involving an armed individual who rammed a federal vehicle.
The Illinois and Oregon challenges represent part of a broader pattern of legal resistance to Trump's military deployment strategy. California previously sued over troop deployments to Los Angeles during immigration enforcement operations, with mixed results in federal courts - a district judge initially ruled against the deployment before an appeals court panel upheld it.
The dueling court decisions suggest the constitutional questions surrounding domestic military deployments will likely require resolution by higher courts as the administration continues pressing its enforcement agenda in Democratic-led cities.
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