For Immediate Release: December 29, 2025

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks President Trump’s Attempt to Deploy the National Guard Against Civilians in Chicago

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pushing back on President Trump’s claim that “I have the right to do anything I want to do,” the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to lift a lower court order preventing the President from deploying National Guard troops against civilians in Chicago, allowing the block on the deployment to remain in place.

In urging the Supreme Court to rein in the President’s attempts to establish a de facto standing army, a coalition of civil liberties organizations—including The Rutherford Institute, the ACLU, ACLU of Illinois, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and FIRE—argued in Trump v. Illinois that American law and tradition strictly limit the use of the military in domestic affairs. The coalition emphasized that the Posse Comitatus Act forbids federal troops from engaging in civilian law enforcement except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

The Rutherford Institute, together with Demand Progress, R Street Institute, the Society for the Rule of Law Institute, and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government, has also called on Congress to reassert its Article I authority by enacting legislation to curb presidential abuses of National Guard deployment powers.

“The President’s attempt to turn the National Guard into a standing army on American soil—deploying troops against the American people—is the very abuse of power the Constitution was written to restrain,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Each time the President treats ordinary protest as rebellion and sends soldiers to enforce so-called ‘order’ in our cities, he’s not defending the nation—he’s dismantling the very freedoms that define it, while betraying the Constitution in the process.”

The lawsuit in Trump v. Illinois challenges the President’s effort to federalize and deploy the National Guard to Chicago under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3), which permits such action only when “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” A federal district court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) blocking the deployment after finding no evidence that protests in Illinois had impeded the federal government’s ability to enforce the law. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that order, and the Trump administration then sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court.

In allowing the TRO to remain in effect, the Supreme Court concluded that the term “regular forces” referenced in 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3) likely refers to the regular forces of the U.S. mili­tary, not merely civilian law enforce­ment officers. As a result, the statute likely applies only in circumstances where the military could lawfully execute the laws—situations the Court described as “exceptional,” given that the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits the military from performing civilian law enforcement functions unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing separately, warned that “one apparent ramification of the Court’s opinion is that it could cause the President to use the U. S. military more than the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property in the United States.”

Hina Shamsi, Charlie Hogle, Cecillia D. Wang, and others at ACLU advanced the arguments in the amicus brief.

The Rutherford Institute is a nonprofit civil liberties organization dedicated to making the government play by the rules of the Constitution. To this end, the Institute defends individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a broad range of issues affecting their freedoms.

Case History

November 10, 2025 • Civil Liberties Groups Urge Supreme Court to Block President’s Use of Troops in Chicago 

Legal Documents: Trump v. Illinois

• Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals: Opinion
• U.S. Supreme Court: Amicus Brief
• U.S. Supreme Court: Opinion 

Coalition Letter to Congress

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This press release is also available at www.rutherford.org.

Source: https://tinyurl.com/nhfnx9c7

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