Chicago, Illinois Sue Trump Over National Guard

 As the White House pursues Democrat-led cities amid weeks of protests over the federal government’s immigration enforcement operation, the states of Illinois and Chicago filed lawsuits against the Trump administration on Monday for sending National Guard troops to Chicago.

The action, which was filed just hours after a federal court barred a similar deployment of the guard to Portland, Oregon, creates a new front in the legal war the White House is waging against state and municipal leaders. In a retaliation for a tactic he initially employed against anti-immigration and Customs Enforcement demonstrations in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, the lawsuit was filed two days after the White House declared that President Donald Trump had approved the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard members to Chicago in order to “protect federal officers and assets.”

The complaint requests that the court declare the federalization of National Guard personnel in general to be illegal and compel the administration to cease federalizing or deploying any National Guard troops to Illinois. The protest from Illinois comes after a similar challenge to the administration’s decision to send federalized guard personnel to Portland from California and Oregon.

A Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily halted the National Guard’s deployment from anywhere in the United States to Portland on Sunday after officials in both states raised objections. Since protests in Portland “did not pose a ‘danger of rebellion,'” the court concluded, the president seems to have “exceeded his constitutional authority” by federalizing soldiers.