President Donald Trump walks from Marine One after arriving on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A federal appellate court unanimously sided against Donald Trump”s deployment of the National Guard in Chicago, finding that the “facts do not justify the President’s actions.”
A three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, including circuit judges appointed by Presidents George H.W. Bush, Trump, and Barack Obama, wrote Thursday that while Trump’s determinations are entitled to “great deference,” as articulated in a recent 9th Circuit argument over the deployment of the National Guard in Oregon, the district court’s findings of fact were “not clearly erroneous.”
Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Ilana Rovner, U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, and Senior Judge David Hamilton notably concluded in the per curiam decision — penned by no specific judge and reflecting the view of the panel — that there is no “rebellion” or danger thereof under the meaning of 10 U.S. Code § 12406, such that Trump is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States” and protect ICE agents and federal property.
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“Political opposition is not rebellion,” the panel said. “A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows.”
“Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest,” the opinion went on. “Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly.”
The judges determined that Trump is not “likely to succeed” in showing that “spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions” meet the statutory meaning of a “rebellion” justifying the federalization of hundreds of National Guard troops, whether from Texas or Illinois, over the 10th Amendment objection of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.
According to the panel, the record up to now shows that the Trump administration “has been able to protect federal property and personnel without the National Guard’s help,” and so it left U.S. District Judge April Perry’s injunction in place.
At the same time, the judges acknowledged the situation on the ground could change. For that reason, the panel said the harm of allowing National Guard to remain “temporarily under federal control, without deploying” seems “relatively minimal.”
