Biden Judge Blocks National Guard Rollout In Chicago Amid Immigration Crackdown

A Biden-appointed judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to the Chicago area amid widespread immigration enforcement operations. 

U.S. District Judge April Perry issued a two-week temporary restraining order blocking the activation of the National Guard in Illinois. The Trump administration has said the National Guard is necessary to protect federal property, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. Perry concluded at a hearing on Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security had been citing “unreliable evidence” to justify the deployment. 

Perry’s ruling said that the Trump administration was “temporarily enjoined from ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.”

The judge said that allowing the National Guard to be deployed would “only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started,” according to NBC. 

A follow-up ruling is scheduled for October 22, when Perry says she will determine whether to extend the injunction another two weeks. The Trump administration has appealed the order. 

The ruling was celebrated by Illinois Democrat Governor JB Pritzker, who has likened the deployment to an “invasion.” 

“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” he said. 

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded by saying that Trump had “exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets” in the face of “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell.”

“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities and we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” she added. 

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White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ripped into the judge over the ruling.

“A federal judge seems not to know that federal troops come from many different states. They are, again, federal troops on a federal protective mission,” he wrote on X. 

There has been a significant federal presence in the Chicago area for the last few weeks as the Trump administration has been carrying out “Operation Midway Blitz” to crack down on illegal immigration. ICE agents have been targeted in multiple car rammings, according to DHS.