7th Circuit: ‘The Administration Remains Barred From Deploying the National Guard of the United States Within Illinois’

16 October 2025, USA, Washington Dc: US National Guard soldiers walk up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial in the early morning. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa (Photo by Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)

A 7th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled unanimously Thursday to maintain the district court’s block on National Guard deployment in Chicago. 

“…the facts do not justify the President’s actions in Illinois,” even when giving him “substantial deference,” the opinion said.

In other words: “The administration remains barred from deploying the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.” 

The panel is composed of a Trump appointee, a Barack Obama appointee and a George H. W. Bush appointee. 

The panel had previously handed down an administrative stay, letting Guard members in Illinois remain under federal control, but blocking their deployment. 

In its Thursday opinion, the judges were much more supportive of the district court than their counterparts on the 9th Circuit, who are considering the administration’s appeal of an order blocking Guard deployments in Portland. Calling U.S. District Court Judge April Perry’s opinion “thorough,” the 7th Circuit panel also supported her decision to give Chicago’s on-the-ground reports more weight than the administration’s because the latter’s “omitted material information or were undermined by independent, objective evidence.”

The judges made once banal, now profound statements about the legitimacy of political protest, while Republican leaders regularly refer to peaceful protesters as “terrorists.”

“Political opposition is not rebellion,” the opinion 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 Trump administration, per the opinion, regularly hurt its own case. Its crowing about its deportation successes in Chicago undermined its supposed need for the Guard to support other federal law enforcement, and its calling up of the Texas Guard to invade Chicago — “an incursion on Illinois’s sovereignty” — helped Chicago prove its injury.

This case is likely bound for the Supreme Court. 

Read the opinion here:

10
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Next up: “Who will rid me of these turbulent judges?”
    Actually, we’re already there.

  2. Glenn Beck = Mighty Mouth

    I lost count of the instances of Glenn Beck’s disinformation in the article.

    “Beck suggested that the financial institutions themselves were financing antifa in some way, saying, “If I had my money in Schwab or Fidelity, I don’t know if I would have it. They’re giving to the people who are supporting these people.”

    Beck further listed crowdfunding platforms including ActBlue, Patreon, and others, but he did not indicate the channels by which money had moved through those platforms or to whom.

    *“I’m not accusing anyone here. I’m just saying.”*

    In 2020, Beck’s company Blaze Media, formed from the merger of TheBlaze and CRTV, reportedly had 450,000 paid subscribers.

    TheBlaze.com attracts over 25 million unique visitors per month. His personal website, GlennBeck.com, receives over 4 million unique visitors monthly.

    No wonder this country is so f-cked up.

    OMFG:

    He’s just saying…

  3. Avatar for 1gg 1gg says:

    Parody is our new reality.

  4. Re Potential San Francisco deployment. A request for a National Guard presence in SF appears to have come from the CEO of Salesforce who sees an opportunity to get free security. From Politico:

    “…..Benioff “[doesn’t] even live or vote” in the city, as the Salesforce chief has primarily resided in Hawaii since the pandemic. Benioff has been in town all week for Dreamforce, later clarifying “when I was recently asked about federal resources, my point was this: Each year, to make Dreamforce as safe as possible for 50,000 attendees, we add 200 additional law enforcement professionals.”

    “Dreamforce is important to San Francisco and the City bends over backward to make it a success,” Conway wrote. “But San Francisco does not need a federal invasion because you don’t like paying for extra security for Dreamforce.”

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

4 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for 1gg Avatar for fearandloathing Avatar for travelingprincess Avatar for canyoncountry Avatar for davidn Avatar for bcgister Avatar for ladyfair Avatar for Fire_Joni_Ernst

Continue Discussion