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CHICAGO: Donald Trump’s administration asked the US Supreme Court on Friday to allow his deployment of National Guard troops to the Chicago area, as the Republican president moves to dispatch military personnel to a growing number of Democratic-led locales and expand the use of the armed forces for domestic purposes.
The Justice Department asked the court to block a judge’s ruling that halted the deployment of hundreds of troops over the objection of Illinois state officials and local leaders, while litigation challenging Trump’s plan continues.
Given events on the ground, the judge questioned the administration’s stated reasons for sending in the military. A federal appeals court upheld the judge’s ruling on Thursday, also doubting the administration’s stated justification.
The administration has stated that danger to federal property and personnel posed by protests against Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement policies justified the president’s deployment of troops. In a written filing, the Justice Department called the assessment by local officials of these protests as “implausibly rosy” and urged immediate action.
Federal law enforcement agencies “have been forced to operate under the constant threat of mob violence,” the department said. “Local forces have failed to respond, or unaccountably delayed their response, even when federal agents face life-threatening violence.”
The Supreme Court asked Illinois and Chicago officials to respond to the Justice Department’s request by Monday afternoon.
“Donald Trump will keep trying to invade Illinois with troops — and we will keep defending the sovereignty of our state,” Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote on social media. “Militarizing our communities against their will is not only un-American but also leads us down a dangerous path for our democracy. What will come next?“
Trump ordered National Guard troops to Chicago, the third-largest US city, and Portland, Oregon following his earlier deployments to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C. Trump has sought to use military forces to suppress protests and support domestic immigration enforcement.
Trump and his allies have described these cities as lawless, crime-ravaged and plagued with vast, violent protests in need of military intervention. Democratic mayors and governors, along with other Trump critics, have said these claims are a false account of the situation and a pretext for sending troops to punish adversaries, accusing Trump of abusing his power.
Federal judges have expressed skepticism over the administration’s view of events on the ground. Demonstrations over the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts have been largely peaceful and limited in size, according to local officials, far from the “war zone” conditions described by Trump.

Testing the limits
Though Trump has suggested troops can be used to tackle crime, National Guard and other military personnel under US law are not typically permitted to engage in civilian law enforcement. While a US president can deploy the National Guard under certain authorities, Trump is testing the limits of those powers by sending troops to cities controlled by his political adversaries.
The legal dispute centers on Trump’s invocation of a federal law that allows a president to federalize National Guard troops only in the case of rebellion or if he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
The administration this month federalized 300 Illinois National Guard troops and also ordered more Texas National Guard troops into the state.
In the face of criticism and pushback from local leaders, Trump escalated his threats, calling on October 8 for the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois, both Democrats, to be jailed, accusing them of failing to protect immigration officers.
Illinois and Chicago sued the administration over the deployment. On October 9, Chicago-based US District Judge April Perry, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the move.
Perry said the administration’s claims of violence during protests at an immigration facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois, where a small group of demonstrators had gathered daily for weeks, were unreliable.
In a written opinion, Perry faulted administration officials for “equating protests with riots and a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting or doing violence.”
There is no evidence of a danger of rebellion in Illinois or that the law is not being enforced, the judge said, adding that a National Guard deployment “will only add fuel to the fire.”
A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to lift Perry’s order blocking the deployment, concluding that “the facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois.” Two of the three judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including one by Trump. 

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump suggested Friday it would be premature to give Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying as he hosted Volodymyr Zelensky that he hoped to secure peace with Russia first.

“Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about Tomahawks,” Trump told journalists including an AFP reporter as the two leaders met at the White House.

Trump added that he was confident of getting Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion he launched in 2022, following a phone call with the Kremlin chief a day earlier.

The US and Russian presidents agreed on Thursday to a new summit in the Hungarian capital Budapest, which would be their first since an August meeting in Alaska that failed to produce any kind of peace deal.

“I think that President Putin wants to end the war,” Trump said.

But Zelensky, who wore a dark suit for his third meeting with Trump in Washington since the US president’s return to power, demurred, saying that Putin was “not ready” for peace.

Ukraine has been lobbying Washington for Tomahawks for weeks, arguing that the missiles could help put pressure on Russia to end its brutal three-and-a-half year invasion.

But on the eve of Zelensky’s visit, Putin warned Trump in a call against delivering the weapons, saying it could escalate the war and jeopardize peace talks.

Trump said the United States had to be careful to not “deplete” its own supplies of Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles).

- ‘Many questions’ -

Diplomatic talks on ending Russia’s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit.

But Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears set on pursuing a breakthrough to follow the Gaza ceasefire deal that he brokered last week.

The Kremlin said Friday that “many questions” needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team.

But it brushed off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace.

Hungary said it would ensure Putin could enter and “hold successful talks” with the US despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes.

“Budapest is the only suitable place in Europe for a USA-Russia peace summit,” Hungarian President Viktor Orban said on X on Friday.

- Trump frustration -

Zelensky’s visit to Washington, Ukraine’s main military backer, will be his third since Trump returned to office.

During this time, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.

At the start of his term, Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections.”

Tensions came to a head in February, when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “not having the cards” in a rancorous televised meeting at the Oval Office.

Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.

But Trump has kept a channel of dialogue open with Putin, saying that they “get along.”

The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Russia following calls with the Russian president.

Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country and prevent the expansion of NATO.

Kyiv and its European allies say the war is an illegal land grab that has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and widespread destruction.

Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday the Russian defense ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.