Illinois cannot yet file suit against the federal government for an apparent plan to send federal troops to Chicago, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said, but if boots hit the ground, President Donald Trump “should expect a legal challenge here.”
It would be the latest in a bevy of lawsuits that the state has filed against the Trump administration in relation to immigration.
That includes two lawsuits — one of which Raoul filed Monday — against the administration’s plan to withhold funding from states that don’t cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“None of this chaos, and none of these acts make us safer,” Raoul said Monday, referring to the administration’s efforts to federalize National Guard troops and withhold funding for states that limit law enforcement collaboration with ICE.
House Republicans, meanwhile, called a news conference Tuesday saying they want to “bring down the tension” and once again called for repealing the state’s TRUST Act that prohibits local law enforcement agencies from assisting ICE with civil immigration enforcement.
Legality of troop deployment
Thus far, Illinois officials know little about the federal government’s plan — or if one will even be executed — to send troops to Chicago. Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday the Illinois National Guard learned of a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that requested the Department of War send 100 troops to the city.
Pritzker said DHS sought the activation of troops to protect “ICE personnel and facilities.” He also said he didn’t know whether the troops requested would be Illinois National Guard or from another state.
Over the weekend, armed Customs and Border Patrol officers paraded through the streets of Chicago arresting people, while ICE shot chemical projectiles and rubber bullets at protesters in Broadview, including allegedly at a TV news reporter’s car. As of Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported that federal prosecutors had charged five people in relation to recent protests, including two who were apparently armed.
Raoul noted it is illegal to prevent federal agents from doing their jobs, including trying to block vehicles. But he also said the 10th Amendment “preserves state sovereignty to enforce state laws as they see fit,” previewing his legal arguments should troops arrive.
“The militia clauses of the United States Constitution give Congress sole authority to decide what factual circumstances allow the presidents to federalize the National Guard. They don't exist here,” Raoul said.
In August, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard soldiers in Los Angeles to engage in law enforcement was illegal. The Trump administration has since appealed. The attorney general of Oregon is also challenging a recent troop deployment.
But it’s unclear whether a judge would deem the apparent purpose of this deployment — to protect ICE and federal buildings, according to Pritzker — as permissible.
“Clearly, this deployment of the Federal officers into our well-policed central business district is meant to provoke Chicagoans,” Raoul said. “What the President is hoping to do is foment chaos by inciting out-of-control protests. So I urge Illinoisans: Don't take the bait. There is no emergency in Chicago. Don't help him create one.”
GOP blames Pritzker
None of the three House Republican leaders who called a news conference Tuesday expressed concerns about the potential deployment of federal troops to Chicago or the actions of ICE and Border Patrol agents in the city.
The Biden administration’s lax border policies made Illinois “unable to keep up with the flood of illegal immigrants coming into the country,” Rep. CD Davidsmeyer, R-Murrayville, said. That affected crime rates and the state budget, he said.
Rep. Jeff Keicher, R-Sycamore, said he believed ICE agents were on Michigan Ave. because of Pritzker’s actions. He criticized Pritzker’s comment, made in Los Angeles last March, that Democrats need to become “street fighters” in the political arena.
“I haven't seen reporting of our governor saying what is occurring with ICE is illegal,” Keicher said. “He just feels it's wrong, and that's the premise of the issue. He should be addressing this through legal challenges. He's choosing not to, because the actions of ICE are legal.”
Pritzker agreed with the premise that everyone should tone down their rhetoric, but he again criticized Trump at an unrelated Tuesday news conference.
“The president of the United States is trying to label the Democratic Party as if it's some terrorist organization,” Pritzker said. “Who is inciting people? It's usually the Republicans and Donald Trump, who are accusing other people of the very thing they are guilty of.”
Keicher said he filed House Bill 4142 to make protestors subject to a Class A misdemeanor if an officer tells them to get at least 14 feet away and the protestor does not comply.
In relation to protests in Broadview, House Minority Leader Tony McCombie criticized Pritzker for calling on Illinoisans to record interactions with ICE and Border Patrol and to seek badge numbers from the masked agents.
“It again goes back to Gov. Pritzker calling people to go there, show up and record, be present,” she said. “If there is something going on there, why is the governor sending citizens to this site? Why is he not sending law enforcement?”
Asked about the CBS-Chicago journalist who said her car was hit by a pepper ball, McCombie responded: “I would highly doubt that ICE was targeting anybody from the media. They're doing their job, trying to protect themselves, the facility and the detainees.”
The reporter said there were no protests happening when her car was hit; the Broadview Police Department said it was investigating.
U.S. citizens allegedly detained
In a new court filing, advocates for immigrant rights allege ICE detained at least three U.S. citizens earlier this month in raids on several suburban communities as part of “Operation Midway Blitz” in the Chicago area.
Lawyers for the National Immigrant Justice Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois allege the citizens were among more than two dozen people arrested since May without warrants or probable cause, which violates a federal consent decree.
Since 2022, ICE has been under a consent decree that stipulates immigration agents cannot arrest people without warrants in the Chicago area unless there’s reason to believe someone is in the U.S. illegally and would flee before a judge could issue an arrest warrant.
The settlement was in response to a 2018 class-action lawsuit during the first Trump administration, which challenged the use of traffic stops to make arrests without warrants. It required ICE to adopt a nationwide policy on warrantless arrests.
The consent decree was set to expire in May, but NIJC and the ACLU petitioned the court earlier this spring to extend it another three years. While a federal judge in Chicago weighs the matter, he ordered that ICE continue refraining from arresting people without warrants. But attorneys argue the Trump administration has gone back on that policy since the president came back into power in January.
Court documents detailed
The court documents, filed Friday and first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, detail the arrests of 27 people in Chicago and eight suburbs. Among the accounts were arrests of a father driving to church, a grandmother with no criminal history who takes care of her grandchildren, and many people on their way to work.
On Sept. 21, ICE allegedly arrested a man outside his family member’s home in Mount Prospect while he was packing his popsicle cart into his minivan. ICE agents, wearing jackets that allegedly said “POLICE,” asked the man about someone they were looking for. When the man, who has been in the U.S. for more than 20 years, said he didn’t know the person, agents asked for his ID and then arrested him, according to the filing.
In one instance in June, ICE agents showed a warrant to a man outside his home in Chicago. But the name and photo on the warrant did not match the man’s identity. The officers allegedly suggested the man’s driver’s license and state ID were fake and then arrested him. He’s remained in custody for more than three months.
According to the filing, the 27 arrestees in question were not told why they were being detained, and in some cases, ICE officers were masked, did not identify themselves or even display a badge. The filing alleges NIJC has received reports of more than 70 additional arrests that may constitute violations of the consent decree.
On Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported on a family of undocumented immigrants arrested over the weekend at Chicago’s Millennium Park while ICE ramped up its presence downtown. According to the report, federal agents took the family into custody without warrants despite the mother demanding to see one. She and her children, ages 3 and 8, are being held at O’Hare Airport awaiting transfer to Texas before deportation to Guatemala. Her husband is at the ICE processing center in Broadview.
Lawsuits for funding
Illinois and other states have also fought the Trump administration’s immigration actions in court in relation to federal funding.
Last week, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the federal government cannot withhold emergency funding from Illinois and other states based on those states’ refusal to participate in immigration enforcement.
The judge ruled that the order violates the Constitution because Congress controls spending.
Read more: Judge rules feds can’t block Illinois’ disaster funding in response to immigration laws
Since then, Illinois learned of another attempt to divert funding, Raoul said.
He’s leading a coalition of 12 attorneys general challenging the reallocation of $100 million in public safety and disaster relief funds “away from Illinois and other states around the country.” Illinois’ cut is worth $30 million, Raoul estimated.
Raoul said DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency made the cuts with four days remaining in the fiscal year “without any notice or explanation.” The attorneys general also filed that lawsuit in Rhode Island.
“These funds under the Homeland Security grant program help states protect against acts of terrorism and are a critical source of money for networks of police departments, fire departments, emergency services and public works departments across the country,” Raoul said.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
