The US supreme court refused on Tuesday to let Donald Trump send national guard troops to the Chicago area, in an important reining-in of the US president’s efforts to expand the use of the military for domestic purposes in historic moves against a growing number of Democratic-led jurisdictions.
The nation’s highest court denied the US justice department’s request to lift a judge’s order in October that has blocked the deployment of hundreds of national guard personnel in a legal challenge brought by Illinois state officials and local leaders, who had opposed any federalization of those troops to offer backup to immigration enforcement.
The department had asked to allow the deployment while the litigation plays out. There have been sustained protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Broadview, on the outskirts of Chicago, with aggressive tactics used against the resistance by the authorities.
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The justices decided on a 6-3 vote on Tuesday to back a lower court and rule that the Trump administration had not met the legal burden needed to show that it was not able to execute the laws of the land without federal military intervention.
The three justices leaning furthest to the right on the bench, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, dissented on Tuesday.
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Reuters contributed reporting
