Trump administration asks Supreme Court to toss stay in National Guard case

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

The Trump administration on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to drop a stay preventing the president from federalizing and deploying the National Guard to U.S. cities over the objections of local leaders.

“Such relief is amply warranted for this [temporary restraining order], which threatens the President’s control over both military affairs and immigration enforcement, while imperiling the safety of DHS personnel and property,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on behalf of the administration on Tuesday. “Every day this improper TRO remains in effect imposes grievous and irreparable harm on the Executive, and this Court should not tolerate attempts by lower courts and litigants to delay its review through the use of preliminary injunctions issued in the guise of time-limited TROs.”

Top attorneys for Illinois and Chicago said Trump has overstepped his authority. They were joined by officials from Los Angeles, California, and elsewhere in the legal fight over who controls the troops.

“The Court should decline applicants’ request to unsettle the equitable judgment reflected in the Seventh Circuit’s order and to take the dramatic step of permitting deployment of National Guard troops over Illinois’s objection for the handful of days the [temporary restraining order] currently remains in effect,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s legal team wrote in a legal filing.

The state and others have challenged Trump’s authority to deploy the National Guard to cities over objection of local leaders. Illinois officials said federal authorities aren’t needed.

“Applicants’ contrary arguments rest on mischaracterizations of the factual record or the lower courts’ views of the legal principles,” the state said in its response. “As the district court found, state and local law enforcement officers have handled isolated protest activities in Illinois, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.”

Sauer argued that state and local officials can’t question the president’s emergency decision.

“This case falls in the heartland of unreviewable presidential discretion,” he wrote. “Respondents completely ignore that DHS agents would be able to engage in greater enforcement of the immigration laws if they were not operating under the threat of assaults and obstruction, and that they are currently bearing unacceptable risks to their safety while doing their jobs.”