District Court: TRO For Troops In Chicago Area, TRO From Using Riot Tactics Against Protests, And More!
from the now-go-home dept
Hello from the free state of Illinois! We just talked about Donald Trump’s incurrsion into Chicago and the surrounding area, in which he first sent in a bunch of masked ICE agents to terrorize citizens and immigrants alike, at one point raiding an apartment building with agents repelling from blackhawk helicopters like the reincarnated form of Osama Bin Laden was hiding inside of it. When a couple of hundred protesters showed up outside of a major ICE facility in nearby Broadview, the feds first fired gas and pepper bullets at them for the crime of protesting, and eventually shot a protester seven times for “ramming” an ICE vehicle as part of a “convoy.” Notably, the convoy appears to have consisted of a couple of vehicles and lawyers for the protest claim bodycam footage, not yet released, shows that it was the ICE vehicle that did the ramming, and that an agent jumped out at the protestor shouting “Do something, bitch!” before shooting her seven times.
Cool.
Well, the threat to ICE from the people they were solely shooting at was enough for Trump to want National Guard members from both Illinois and, bizarrely, Texas to deploy to the Chicago area to “protect” ICE agents and for Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor J.B. Pritzker to be arrested. Full on authoritarianism. Those local officials refused to back down and in fact sued to get the military the hell out of Chicago’s streets. In the meantime, Pete Hegseth, presumably while having a splitting headache and a bad bout of dehydration, had already sent the troops in.
Now, two separate judges at the District Court have issued two separate orders upon the federal government and both are firmly in the loser category for Trump.
Let’s start with the TRO on the National Guard being deployed to the Chicago area.
A judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from federalizing or deploying the national guard in Illinois after Donald Trump ordered hundreds of troops to Chicago to help with immigration enforcement and to battle what the White House says are high crime rates in the city.
US district judge April Perry issued her decision from the bench after more than two hours of arguments from lawyers for the federal government and the state of Illinois, which sued the Trump administration over the deployment. The order took effect on Thursday and will remain in place for two weeks.
According to reporters present in the courtroom, Perry said she had “seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois”. On Thursday evening, around the time of Perry’s ruling, about half a dozen guard soldiers were milling around inside the gate at the Ice center in Broadview. A group of about 10 protesters were outside.
Now, we all know how little regard this administration has for court orders. I fully expect them to try to play semantic and technical games to keep the troops where they are. After all, who else will shuffle their feet around with nothing to do if not our soldiers? But that will kick off yet another constitutional crisis. I expect it and, frankly, I want it to happen. I keep saying this, but this is going to come to a head sooner or later and we might as well get things started. The sooner Trump exceeds his authority and fully thumbs his nose at the rule of law, the sooner someone is going to have to do something about it. And if that means Republicans finally waking up and getting him to back down, great. If it means impeachment, all the better. But since neither of those things is likely to happen, instead I expect civil activity to spring up all across the country in major cities. Let’s go.
Lawyers for the government tried to pretend reality wasn’t reality with Judge Perry and she simply wasn’t buying it.
Eric Hamilton, a justice department lawyer, said the Chicago area was rife with “tragic lawlessness”.
“Chicago is seeing a brazen new form of hostility from rioters targeting federal law enforcement,” Hamilton said. “They’re not protesters. There is enough that there is a danger of a rebellion here, which there is.”
In handing down her order, Perry assailed the Department of Homeland Security for providing a version of events on the ground that was “simply unreliable”.
Folks, I can’t stress this enough: the federal government is completely full of shit. I grew up two towns over from Broadview, the location of “the rebellion”. I live 20 minutes away from the ICE facility in question. I nearly drove past it on my way to work this morning. If there is a rebellion in the works, it is remarkably silent and invisible. When this judge says “hey, you’re full of shit!” as politely as possible to a government lawyer, I can promise you that she’s right.
The Trump administration is of course going to appeal this, but I would bet they’ll lose there as well. And then this will go before SCOTUS and god knows what those lunatics will decide. But make no mistake: the government’s lawyers are lying. Blatantly lying. I live here. I know it to be so. And this will further galvanize legal action from other states that can see where this all ends if not challenged.
Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor have signed an appeals court filing in support of the legal challenge by California – and also one in the Portland, Oregon, where a similar troop deployment is also being challenged.
Collective action is desperately needed, so more of this, please.
But the courts weren’t done. A separate judge in the court issued an injunction both to keep ICE and other federal agents from using riot control tactics on small, peaceful protests, and to cut the shit with their jackboot thugs routine.
In a separate ruling on Thursday, the US district judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction restricting agents’ use of force, including pepper balls, rubber bullets and physical force such as pulling, shoving or tackling against protesters and journalists who don’t pose a serious threat to law enforcement.
Ellis’s order covers all of northern Illinois and also requires federal agents to wear “visible identification” such as badges, the subject of heated debate as viral footage has surfaced of masked, plainclothes officers carrying out immigration enforcements in several US cities.
You boys and girls want to hunt human beings and violate the rights of citizens and the due process rights of all manner of people? Show your faces. Show your names and your badges. Be accountable. Don’t hide behind balaclavas or masks and unmarked cars indistinguishable from impersonators. You’ll do this out in the open or you won’t do it at all. That’s as American as baseball and apple pie.
This isn’t the end of this. It might not even be the beginning of the end. I fully expect the federal government to violate these injunctions essentially immediately. I’m also taking note of a complete lack of outrage from elected Republicans over Trump’s violation of law as well as his call to jail elected officials for the crime of not following his orders. Cowards, all of you.
But again, this is going to come to an inflection point sometime. It might as well be now. After all, I love the smell of court injunctions in the morning.
Filed Under: april perry, brandon johnson, broadview, chicago, donald trump, eric hamilton, ice, illinois, jb pritzker, national guard, sara ellis, thuggery
Comments on “District Court: TRO For Troops In Chicago Area, TRO From Using Riot Tactics Against Protests, And More!”
“Sure, we can’t federalize or deploy them anymore, but these ones were already deployed, right?”
And, of course, the order doesn’t saying anything about deploying the Coast Guard, arming the postal service, and so on.
Re:
You must not know about the phrase “going postal”, used to indicate the act of commiting mass violence in the workplace by an enraged coworker. The postal workers don’t need to be armed.
I won’t mind if they were armed though, because based on the very few I have known, I’d say they would be better as the leaders of the last line of defense for regular citizens. They know the roads, they are physically fit and they go through a rigorous onboarding process.
Oh, I almost forgot, they know how to deal with dogs. I don’t know if that carries over against armed robodog drones or whatever the government has out there these days but I wouldn’t be surprised if postal workers could handle those easily.
Did this motherfucker just try to use the reaction to the presence of federal troops to justify sending in federal troops?
Re:
“Your honor, I was justified in beating my wife! After all, she tried to block my fist after I gave her a black eye!”
Re:
Cross state lines, start a fight, and then claim to be the victim who was just defending yourself when you inflict further violence.
You have to admit, it is on brand for them.
Re: Re:
It worked for Kyle Rittenhouse.
Constitutional crisis
We’ve all heard the myth of the boiling toad. It’s not true, but it does serve a purpose.
YOU Techdirt writers and WE Techdirt readers have talked constitutional crisis since 2017.
AND YET it’s always “coming soon.” This goon has destroyed the federal government, our trade with the rest of the world, deported citizens to LDCs, claimed rights to own Greenland and Canada, has promoted IDIOTS to SECDEF, ODNI, AG, AUSAs, etc.
He has ignored court orders. His thugs are rapelling from UH60s to arrest US CITIZENS theoretically safe under the castle doctrine.
And yet…
You tell me a constitutional crisis is coming.
What WILL it take? Please elucidate a bright line so when it’s crossed we don’t just use our tennis shoes to wipe it out, step back 10 feet, and draw a new line in the sand.
Pussies. And bullies. Pick one.
Re:
We should’ve stopped talking “constitutional crisis” when Roberts ruled that the President was above the law and the lower courts didn’t fucking revolt. One of my coworkers has taken to referring to this country as “the former United States of America,” on the theory that the USA was a constitutional republic and we no longer have a functioning Constitution or Republic since the Supreme Court has effectively negated fairly large chunks of the document over the last decade and the three branches of government are uniformly in thrall to a senile robber-king and his fascist toadies.
I suspect that government lawyers have learned that despite a nominal ‘duty of candor to the court’ is that the lawyers never get (seriously) punished for lying. Or just not doing their job.
Of course, we knew this. What other post-graduate degrees require taking and passing a course in ethics? Socratean history?
Re: A penalty never enforced effectively doesn't exist
One need only look at how long the likes of Prenda were able to operate even after they started facing legal challenges to see that the legal system is insanely hesitant to go after it’s own, which might not be too dangerous in normal times but not so much when someone ‘bending’ or violating a legal ruling or ‘duty’ can have devastating consequences for countless peoples’ lives.
Re:
The state never punish itself; even its nominal losses do not result in any harm to the state, only to the citizens who must pay more taxes for fewer services as tmoney is bled into compensating the victims while the perpetrators continue with business as usual.
As put in a less popular sibling of The Three Musketeers: By whom? It was I who commanded the Musketeers, he must have commanded me to convery myself to prison; I would never have consented: I would have resisted myself.
At this point any judge issuing a ruling against the regime should do so expecting that it will be violated before the printer ink is even dry, so solid rulings, now for the follow-up.
They are pretty repelling, but rappelling.
*Yawns*
Let me know when the Supreme Court actually rules against him. The lower courts are just for show at this point (through no fault of their own).
They are doing it 100% for the optics, using the NG as a propaganda tool. I feel ashamed to be a veteran, and it was a mistake to recommenced service to my children.
Re:
Oh a good chuck of it is for the optics, playing up the regime’s ‘power’ and ‘authority’ to their cultists who just love a dictator cracking skulls on their behalf, but a good chunk is also a threat of violence and attempt to suppress opposition, both political and societal. One need only look at the vast difference between what happened in DC(the nation’s capitol and seat of power) when a regime member was attack but not killed, versus what happened in Utah when a regime supporter was flat out murdered in front of a crowd.
‘Nice city you got there, be a shame if troops were to be sent in because too many of you criticized those in power…’
Call me when somebody is held in contempt
Until somebody’s ass in this regime is thrown in jail for flouting the courts rulings don’t mean anything. Even if it is just a low ranking scapegoat it will at least encourage the others to put the law above authority.