Attorney General Kwame Raoul released a statement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to deny a request from the Trump administration for a stay that would have allowed National Guard troops to be deployed in Chicago.
Raoul referenced the historical context of the National Guard’s role, saying, “Nearly 250 years ago, the framers of our nation’s Constitution carefully divided responsibility over the country’s militia, today’s U.S. National Guard, between the federal government and the states – believing it impossible that a president would use one state’s militia against another state. The extremely limited circumstances under which the federal government can call up the militia over a state’s objection do not exist in Illinois, and I am pleased that the streets of Illinois will remain free of armed National Guard members as our litigation continues in the courts.”
The Supreme Court’s decision leaves in place a lower court order preventing federal deployment of National Guard forces in Illinois during ongoing legal proceedings.
