(CNN) — Texas National Guard troops are expected to leave Chicago and return to their home state very soon, a source familiar with the planning told CNN, after weeks in limbo as a court battle played out over the legality of their deployment.
Specific timing is unclear but preparations are now underway for their departure, the source said.
Two hundred federalized troops had arrived in the city over a month ago with a mission from the Trump administration to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other US Government personnel – but instead stayed waiting at training bases for weeks.
The deployment was halted by a federal judge who said there was no justification to bring in the military. And the Supreme Court took the rare step of asking for additional briefing in that high-profile case.
The Texas National Guard members had been activated by President Donald Trump under Title 10 status in early October, and drew immediate backlash amid increasingly tense protests at the ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, Illinois.
The administration also federalized 300 troops from the Illinois National Guard last month to respond to the greater Chicago area.
On Friday, US Northern Command said, “in the coming days, the Department will be shifting and/or rightsizing our Title 10 footprint in Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago to ensure a constant, enduring, and long-term presence in each city.”
Northern Command declined to comment further when asked what this will mean for troops in those cities.
The administration has framed demonstrations in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, as “violent protests” carried out by “domestic terrorists,” arguing that military deployments to the cities are necessary to protect federal immigration personnel and property — despite state and city leaders’ insistence that the protests have been largely peaceful and any violence has been easily dealt with by local law enforcement.
The departure of Texas troops comes about a month after US District Court Judge April Perry issued a scathing ruling halting the deployment in Chicago, saying she had seen “no credible evidence that there has been rebellion in the state of Illinois” that would justify federalizing National Guard soldiers and calling Department of Homeland Security assessments of the protests “unreliable.”
The Supreme Court late last month asked for additional briefing in the case, questioning whether those troops can be used under the federal law at issue to augment immigration officials. The Department of Justice and Illinois officials were asked to address that issue in a series of new briefs due through mid-November.
Legal sagas over deployments
The legal sagas over the Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles deployments – dealing with the balance of presidential and state power – have seen numerous twists and turns as they unfolded in both district courts and before appeals judges.
While attempting to deploy hundreds of troops to Chicago and Portland, the Trump administration compared the cities to a war zone, saying there is either “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” there.
“You look at a place like Portland, it’s just — it’s ridiculous, when they say that there’s no problem. The place is — it was on fire over the weekend,” the president said last month.
The deployments there came after Trump mobilized thousands of National Guard members to the Los Angeles area this summer to quell protests – a move the state’s Democratic leaders cast as an unnecessary escalation amid demonstrations over the administration’s immigration policies.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration in June over the federalization of the California troops and joined a lawsuit in Oregon over Trump’s attempt to send federalized troops in Los Angeles to Portland to respond to protests there.
A federal judge ruled in September that Trump violated federal law by using thousands of federalized California National Guard members and US Marines to help carry out law enforcement activities during the aggressive immigration crackdown.
The administration’s attempt to invoke a rarely used law to deploy National Guard troops to several major American cities to curb crime and shut down protests has come up against multiple legal challenges.
The president can federalize the states’ National Guard for US operations in the case of an emergency when “regular forces” are unable to enforce federal law. Exactly what the law means by “regular forces” is still being discussed in the courts.
Prior to Trump’s call-ups this year in the Democrat-led cities, the last time the National Guard was put under federal control for an operation within American borders was during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 – and it was coordinated with state officials at the time.
There were also National Guard troops deployed to Memphis and Washington, DC – but not federalized under Title 10.
Trump announced in August he is placing the Washington, DC, police department “under direct federal control” and deploying National Guard troops to the nation’s capital, saying the move is aimed at restoring order in the city.
The president then brought the model to Tennessee next.
Like in Washington, DC, the National Guard troops in Memphis are not dedicated just to securing federal property but are also supporting local law enforcement in their operations.
About 200 additional National Guard troops will be deployed in Memphis over the next few days, the Memphis Police Department told CNN Thursday.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
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