Supreme Court probes Trump’s attempt to send National Guard to Chicago

The Supreme Court began to delve into President Trump’s troop deployment in Chicago on Wednesday, asking the opposing sides to brief the justices on what sort of conditions a president must see in order to federalize and send in the National Guard.

The high court honed in on the section of the law that allows a call-up in instances where the “regular forces” are not sufficient to help federal officials carry out their duties. The justices asked the lawyers to take a stance on whether those regular forces mean the military, or something else.

At issue is Mr. Trump’s attempt to deploy hundreds of guard troops to Illinois, where he says protests against ICE have hindered his deportation goals. The administration says he’s had to redirect personnel from other places to handle the unruly protests, and he would like to use the National Guard instead as force protection.

In asking for the additional briefing, the justices signaled that they are taking a close look at Mr. Trump’s justification. That, in itself, could be a bad sign for the White House, which has argued that a president’s decision-making in this area is largely beyond courts’ second-guessing.

Illinois and Chicago challenged his deployment, and so far they’ve prevailed in lower courts.

U.S. District Judge April Perry, a Biden appointee, said things in the Chicago area weren’t as bad as the president and his team had thought.

“I don’t find any evidence of impeding actually happened,” she said.

Homeland Security, though, said things have worsened since Judge Perry’s ruling.

Last week, the department said there were four separate instances of attempts to ram federal immigration law enforcement vehicles in and around Chicago on one day alone. The department also said there was a threat to put a “hit” on a senior official, Customs and Border Protection commander-at-large Gregory Bovino.

A president’s power to deploy troops is granted by law.

It allows a call-up in cases of invasion by a foreign nation, rebellion against the authority of the U.S. government or when “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

In Oregon, Mr. Trump is also trying to deploy 200 National Guard troops to quell violent protests against ICE in Portland.

That deployment has also been put on hold by a district judge, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week said that blockade will remain in place while the full appeals court considers the matter.

Mr. Trump previously called up 4,000 National Guard troops and added 700 active-duty Marines to use in Los Angeles, where anti-ICE protests left parts of that city in disarray in June.

The 9th Circuit has allowed that deployment to stand, albeit over the vehement objection of some of its judges.

“I continue to think that the president’s disregard for this country’s deep-seated commitment to the principle that armed forces must not be used as civil law enforcers except where there is no alternative should have been headed off now, not later,” Judge Marsha S. Berzon, a Clinton appointee, wrote in an opinion Tuesday.

Judge Ronald M. Gould, another Clinton appointee, was even more stern.

“Using military force to quell predominantly peaceful public protests as a first rather than a last resort may cause dissatisfaction of the citizenry and provoke civil unrest,” he wrote. “To have an armed military faced off against civilian protesters, whatever the motivation of the president, threatens to produce another tragedy, such as that occurring at Kent State University in 1970.”

Four students were killed and nine were wounded when Ohio National Guard troops, called up by the governor, opened fire on an unruly Vietnam War protest at the Ohio school.