The Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

Every state with either a Democratic governor, attorney general or both signed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to side with Illinois and Chicago to continue blocking President Donald Trump’s proposed deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.

In an amicus brief filed Monday in the Trump administration’s appeal to overturn lower courts’ rulings that Trump lacks the legal authority to send troops to Chicago, 24 Democratic officials argued that restraining presidential power to mobilize National Guard troops was an essential constitutional safeguard.

“The President has asserted a boundless power far out of step with our Nation’s laws and tradition: the power to federalize and deploy unlimited numbers of National Guard troops at his whim and without any judicial review,” they wrote. “This Court should not endorse such a power.”

State National Guard units are generally under the control of the state’s governor. Federal law does allow the president to federalize state National Guard units in rare cases of invasion, insurrection or when the state is unable to enforce federal laws. 

The Trump administration has argued that circumstances in Chicago constitute both the threat of an insurrection and the inability of local police to enforce federal law.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have argued that lower courts correctly decided that those circumstances were not met in Chicago and Trump may therefore not deploy troops to the city.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown and Washington state Attorney General Nicholas W. Brown led the brief. 

Attorneys general in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai‘i, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia also signed on, as did the governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat whose state led its own lawsuit against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, filed a separate amicus brief Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Tussle over Chicago

The case stems from Trump’s order to federalize Illinois National Guard troops and deploy them to Chicago. 

Trump has said the move is needed to control crime that threatens federal personnel and buildings. Pritzker and Johnson, as well as the state officials in Monday’s brief, say the use of military forces to respond to routine crime is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution’s balance of powers.

The states, even where Trump has not threatened to send troops, are in danger of losing the power granted to them by the Constitution, the officials wrote. 

“President Trump’s invocation of 10 U.S.C. § 12406 to deploy armed, federalized National Guard soldiers and entangle them in everyday civilian law enforcement activities like responding to small-scale protests—over the objection of Illinois’s Governor—is a stunning break from law and tradition,” they wrote, referring to the law outlining the conditions under which a president may federalize a state National Guard.

High court appeal

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the Trump administration emergency motion for a stay Friday. He argued that an injunction from Illinois federal court on Oct. 7 wrongfully decided the scope of the president’s power to control National Guard units.

Sauer argued for a broader interpretation of Trump’s authority, saying the president alone could determine if the conditions for federalizing National Guard units had been met.

“The district court’s injunction impermissibly substitutes the court’s own judgment for the President’s on military matters and rests on a construction of Section 12406 that would render the statute a virtual nullity,” Sauer wrote in the Oct. 17 motion. “The injunction improperly impinges on the President’s authority.”

The Democratic officials on Monday called the assertion of such authority an overreach of presidential power.

“Allowing the President to commandeer state National Guards and use them at his whim would fundamentally upset the balance of power between States and the federal government,” they wrote. “This Court should decline Defendants’ invitation to take such an unprecedented and drastic step.”

Members of the Texas National Guard are seen at the Elwood Army Reserve Training Center on Oct. 7, 2025 in Elwood, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump’s novel use of National Guard troops for law enforcement purposes has reopened a debate over states’ authority to control police powers, as dueling briefs from current and former state leaders filed in Illinois’ lawsuit against the president show.

A bipartisan group of former governors said Trump’s federalization and deployment of National Guard members to Chicago to control “modest” protests upended the careful balance between state and federal powers. 

At the same time, a group of 17 current Republican attorneys general told the court they supported the administration’s move that they said was necessary to protect immigration enforcement officers.

Both groups submitted friend-of-the-court briefs in the suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division brought by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to block the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops to the nation’s third-largest city. 

Trump on Wednesday called for the arrest of Johnson and Pritzker for not assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, a provocative demand that raised further concerns about his administration’s relationship with state leaders.

The bipartisan group supported Pritzker and Johnson’s call for a restraining order to block the deployment, while the Republicans said the restraining order should be denied.

Democratic attorneys general back Oregon 

In another case, in which Oregon is challenging Trump’s order to deploy troops to Portland, Democratic governors or attorneys general in 23 states and the District of Columbia argued in support of the state’s position.

Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was among those siding with Oregon, said Wednesday he did so to “put an end to the dangerous overreach of power we are seeing with Donald Trump’s Guard deployments.”

The brief was also signed by Democratic state officials from Washington state, Maryland, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Kansas and Kentucky and the District of Columbia’s attorney general.

Former govs say deployment robs state authority

The federalist structure of the U.S. government, which bestows powers to both the federal and state governments, leaves broad police power to the states, the bipartisan group wrote. 

Sending military forces to conduct law enforcement would unbalance that arrangement, they said.

That group includes Democratic former Govs. Jerry Brown of California, Steve Bullock of Montana, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, Parris Glendening and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Christine Gregoire, Jay Inslee and Gary Locke of Washington, Tony Knowles of Alaska, Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Eliot Spitzer of New York, Ted Strickland of Ohio, Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania.

GOP former Govs. Arne Carlson of Minnesota, Bill Graves of Kansas, Marc Racicot of Montana, Bill Weld of Massachusetts and Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey also signed the brief.

“The present deployment of military resources, based on an assertion of nearly unfettered federal authority, is unlawful,” they wrote. “The president’s assertion of authority to deploy military troops on domestic soil based on his unreviewable discretion, and without the cooperation and coordination of state authorities, threatens to upset the delicate balance of state and federal authority that underlies our constitutional order.”

The Trump administration misunderstands the section of federal law that Trump has relied on to federalize National Guard troops, the group said. 

The administration’s claim that only the president can decide if the conditions are met for National Guard units to be federalized “not only undermines state sovereignty but also deprives governors of a critical public safety tool,” they wrote.

“If federalization of the National Guard is unreviewable, a president motivated by ill will or competing policy priorities could divert Guard resources away from critical state needs, including natural disasters or public health crises,” they continued.

States need ICE enforcement, GOP govs say

The group of current Republican attorneys general argued their states are harmed by the protests in Chicago and other cities that impede federal ICE officers from doing their jobs.

The attorneys general are Brenna Bird of Iowa, Austin Knudsen of Montana, Gentner Drummond of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of South Carolina, Steve Marshall of Alabama, Tim Griffin of Arkansas, James Uthmeier of Florida, Chris Carr of Georgia, Raúl R. Labrador of Idaho, Todd Rokita of Indiana, Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Catherine Hanaway of Missouri, Michael T. Hilgers of Nebraska, Marty Jackley of South Dakota, Ken Paxton of Texas and John B. McCuskey of West Virginia.

They described the protests in Chicago as acts of violence that require a strong response.

“Rather than protest peacefully, some of those protests became violent, threatening federal officers, harming federal property, and certainly impeding enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “President Trump’s deployment of a small number of National Guard members to defend against this lawlessness is responsible, constitutional, and authorized by statute.”

The attorneys general added that their states had been harmed by immigrants in the country without legal authorization who had settled in their states, which they said gave the president a public interest purpose in calling up troops to assist. 

“The President’s action of federalizing the National Guard furthers the public interest because it allows ICE agents to continue to perform their statutory duties of identifying, apprehending, and removing illegal aliens, which is the only way to protect the States from the harms caused by illegal immigration,” they wrote.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference in Chicago on Oct. 6, 2025. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stands at right. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday in Illinois over Chicago’s lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the state before deciding whether to block the move, the judge wrote in an order.

In a one-paragraph order, U.S. District Judge April M. Perry, whom Democratic President Joe Biden appointed to the bench, set an 11:59 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the Trump administration to respond in writing to the suit filed by the Democratic leaders of Illinois and its largest city, which they filed Monday morning. 

Perry did not immediately grant the restraining order Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson sought to block the deployment at the outset of the case.

Perry said she expected the federal government’s response to include evidence about when National Guard troops would arrive in Illinois, where in the state they would go and “the scope of the troops’ activities” once there. She set oral arguments for 11 a.m. Central Time on Thursday.

The suit seeks to stop Trump’s federalization of Illinois National Guard and mobilization of Texas National Guard troops to the state. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has also agreed to send Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, at Trump’s request.

Pritzker and Johnson’s complaint calls the federalization of state National Guard troops “illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional.” The Democrats added that the move was “patently pretextual and baseless,” meaning it could not satisfy the legal requirements for a president to wrest from a governor control of a state’s National Guard force.

Pritzker, appearing at a Tuesday event in Minneapolis with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the federal government has been noncommunicative about the plan for the National Guard troops, but had received “reports” that troops have arrived at a federal facility in the state.

“We don’t know exactly where this is going to end,” he said. “What we know is that it is striking fear in the hearts of everybody in Chicago.”

A federal judge in another case blocked the deployment to Portland after city and Oregon leaders sued to stop it. The federal government appealed that order, and a panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Thursday, according to a scheduling notice posted Tuesday.

Insurrection Act cited by Trump

Trump has said the extraordinary use of troops, which raises serious legal and constitutional questions about the line between military forces and domestic law enforcement, is necessary to control crime in some Democrat-led cities, including Chicago and Portland. 

State and local leaders in those jurisdictions, as well as Los Angeles, have said military personnel are not needed to supplement local police. Pritzker called the proposed deployment to Chicago an “invasion.”

Trump indicated Monday he may seek to further escalate the push for military involvement domestically, saying he would have no qualms about invoking the Insurrection Act, which expands presidential power to use the military for law enforcement.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” he told reporters. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were getting killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”

Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon and Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff from California — the three states where Trump has sent troops over the governors’ objections — called on Trump to withdraw the troops in a Tuesday statement that warned of the escalating conflict between blue states and the federal government.

“Donald Trump is stretching the limits of Presidential authority far past their breaking point and moving us closer to authoritarianism with each dangerous and unacceptable escalation of his campaign to force federal troops into American communities against the wishes of sovereign states in the Union he is supposed to represent,” the senators wrote.

Dems in Congress question raid

Trump’s use of National Guard troops is in part a response to protests in Democratic cities over this administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement.

Trump has surged immigration enforcement officers to certain cities. Those agents have pursued sometimes aggressive enforcement, including a Sept. 30 raid on a Chicago apartment building that has been criticized for using military-style tactics.

A group of eight U.S. House Democrats wrote Monday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling for an investigation into that raid.

The members were Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, J. Luis Correa of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Delia Ramirez and Jesús “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois.

“We write to express our outrage over the immigration raid,” they said. “Treating a U.S. city like a war zone is intolerable.”

J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.