For U.S. District Judge April Perry, it all came down to credibility.
Should she
believe local law enforcement officials, who say they have protests over
President Donald Trump’s immigration campaign well in hand? Or Trump, whose
aides claim a “brazen new form of hostility” targeting federal law enforcement
had broken out in Illinois?
In the
end, Perry concluded the Trump administration’s “perception of events” around
Chicago “are simply unreliable.” She’d seen “no credible evidence that there is
danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” nor that Trump “is unable … to
execute the laws of the United States,” reported the Chicago Sun-Times.
And after
a historic hearing that lasted more than three hours at the Dirksen Federal
Courthouse, the judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from
“ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United
States within Illinois.”
Perry
ruled orally from the bench and promised a written opinion Friday. The order is
effective for two weeks, and Perry set a hearing for Oct. 22 to determine
whether it should be extended for two more. Trump’s lawyers are sure to appeal
in the meantime.
Gov. JB
Pritzker reacted in a statement, saying, “Donald Trump is not a king — and his
administration is not above the law.
“Today,
the court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a
rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the
streets of American cities like Chicago.”
Illinois
Attorney General Kwame Raoul told reporters after court that “this is an
important decision not just for the state of Illinois, but for the entire
country.
“The
question of state sovereignty was addressed in this decision. The question of
whether or not the president of the United States should have unfettered
authority to militarize our cities was answered today,” Raoul said.
Chicago
Mayor Brandon Johnson said Perry “established that the Trump administration is
unreliable. They lie, misrepresent, and put people in danger.”
But White
House spokesperson Abigail Jackson insisted that Trump “exercised his
lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets” amid “ongoing violent
riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in
to quell.
“President
Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities and
we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” Jackson said.
The
hearing amounted to one of the biggest legal showdowns yet between Trump and
Illinois’ Democratic leaders including Pritzker as well as Raoul and Johnson,
who both watched portions of Thursday’s hearing from the courtroom gallery.
It also
took on national significance as Trump pushes for deployment in cities long
known to be Democratic strongholds. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,
which considers cases from western states, also heard arguments Thursday over
deployment in Oregon.
In
crafting her scathing ruling, Perry turned to recent events in the same federal
courthouse in which she once served as a prosecutor. In recent days it has seen
grand jurors reject criminal charges brought by a U.S. attorney’s
office long revered for its credibility, and a judge rule against the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security when it comes to the treatment of protesters.
“In the
last 48 hours, in four separate, unrelated legal decisions from different
neutral parties, they all cast significant doubt on DHS’ credibility and
assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago,” Perry said.
However,
about 200 troops from Texas and 14 from California had already started arriving
earlier this week, joining about 300 federalized Illinois National Guard
troops. Texas National Guard members were spotted Thursday morning at the U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.
Asked
after court how Perry’s ruling affects those troops, Raoul said,
“There’s a temporary restraining order that they should not be active within
the state of Illinois.”
When asked
if he’d direct them to leave, Raoul said it’s up to the Trump administration
“to abide by the judge’s order.”
Earlier
Thursday, Perry spent 80 minutes interrogating Eric Hamilton, the Justice
Department lawyer who’s been defending deployment of National Guard troops
across the country. He said the “brazen new form of hostility” toward the feds
comes not from protesters, but “violent resistance to duly enacted immigration
laws.”
Still,
Perry told him there had been peace outside the Broadview ICE facility for 19
years, until federal border agents showed up this summer. She asked him if it
mattered, under the law, if Trump’s claimed inability to execute federal law
was by his “own provocation.”
Hamilton
told her it did not.
“The fact
still remains,” Hamilton told the judge, “that we are seeing sustained violence
against federal personnel and property in Illinois.”
Perry
questioned Hamilton about the treatment of protesters by federal agents and
about the accuracy of a claim that the National Guard had been called upon to
protect the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. It had not.
She tested
the boundaries of Hamilton’s arguments, asked whether she should take Trump’s
off-the-cuff remarks and social media posts into account, and said she
struggled with Hamilton’s reluctance to set clear limits on the deployment.
“You have
not committed that they are only going to be deployed at federal property or in
support of immigration and customs enforcement,” Perry told Hamilton. “I am
very much struggling to figure out where this would ever stop.”
This all
thrust Perry onto the national stage 11 months after joining the bench. Former
President Joe Biden once nominated her to be Chicago’s top federal prosecutor. That
nomination was blocked by then-U.S. Sen. JD Vance, who is now Trump’s vice
president.
Biden
then nominated her to be a judge.
Despite
the gravity of the moment, Perry managed to lighten the mood at times with
quips like “riddle me this,” talk of people doing things for “funsies” and
comparing claims of minor vandalism at Broadview’s immigration facility to a
“Carrie Underwood song.”
She also
took a moment to acknowledge the threats being leveled toward public officials
everywhere.
“Mine
started about 10 minutes after I got this case,” Perry said.
Arguments revolved
around a federal law that allows the president to call into federal
service members of the National Guard of any state if there is an invasion or
rebellion — or if the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute
the laws of the United States.”
Perry made
reference to a grand jury’s so-called “no bill,” in which it refused
prosecutors’ request for an indictment. She asked Hamilton about a claim in one
filing about two people who had been arrested outside the Broadview facility on
Sept. 27 “armed with loaded handguns.”
“Are these
the guns that were seized from Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo?” Perry asked. She added
that “those were the two people who were no-billed by the grand jury.”
Hamilton
told the judge, “I have no idea.”
The couple
had been carrying the weapons lawfully.
The fact
that the Trump administration would point to such a case “indicates to me a
certain lack of credibility,” Perry said.
She also
asked Hamilton whether the troops will be “solving crime in Chicago?” Hamilton
said they would, to an extent, through a mission to protect ICE facilities and
personnel.
Perry
later questioned Illinois attorney Christopher Wells for only 15 minutes. She
pressed Wells on whether Trump actually owes an explanation to the state, or
even to her, for why he decided to deploy the troops.
Perry also
noted that the state sought an order blocking the deployment of military troops
in general, in addition to the National Guard. She asked Wells if there’s “any
reason to believe that’s about to happen?”
“Specifically?”
she asked. “Other than just your gut?”
“The gut
is a powerful instinct in this instance,” Wells told her.
“Well, I
need evidence,” Perry retorted.
Later,
during closing arguments, Wells cited a separate appellate court ruling on the
matter that said courts have to be “highly deferential” to the president when
it comes to the law in question.
He also
said the ruling mentions “public virtue.”
“This case
is replete with evidence of bad faith, of an abandonment of public virtue,” he
said. “Of a lack of honest devotion to the public interest and of a grave risk
of usurpation or wanton tyranny.”
To rad more CLICK HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment