A federal judge in Chicago on Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s deployment of hundreds of National Guard soldiers in Illinois, five days after another US judge blocked a similar deployment in Portland, Oregon.
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US District Judge April Perry said that permitting Guard troops in the state would only “add fuel to the fire”, after hearing more than two hours of arguments from lawyers for the US government and the state of Illinois, which sued the Trump administration over the deployment.
The judge said her full, written order will be made available on Friday.
On Thursday morning, Guard soldiers had been seen patrolling at a suburban Chicago immigration facility that has become a frequent target for protests in recent weeks.
Separately, a three-judge panel at a federal appeal court in San Francisco on Thursday appeared likely to set aside the ruling blocking Trump’s Portland deployment, which would clear the way for hundreds of soldiers to enter that city.
The outcomes of the two cases could have significant implications for Trump’s expanding campaign to deploy military personnel to the streets of US cities over the objections from their Democratic leaders.