Before we turn to the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion last week blocking the deployment of Texas National Guard soldiers to Illinois, let’s work through a thought experiment.
Imagine we are not living with the Trump administration but rather that a Democratic administration is in power. And imagine this Democratic president deployed National Guard soldiers from California to Dallas. And imagine it did this even though neither Gov. Greg Abbott nor local officials had requested Guard assistance from California. In fact, they even said they don’t need a Guard presence.
Nevertheless the Guard arrives from California — to do what exactly is unclear despite political rhetoric — and their mere presence inflames community tensions.
Under such a scenario, would Texas officials just lie down and take it? No way. They would put up a political and legal fight — and let’s be real: maybe a physical one, this being Texas.
And this reality is exactly why the unwanted deployment of Texas National Guard soldiers to the Chicago area was so absurd. It was a massive government overreach that trampled on state and local officials.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision last week puts an official stamp on this.
“The Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the unsigned majority opinion said.
President Donald Trump and Co., in a bit of political hyperbole, frequently describe immigration as an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border. And in mobilizing the Texas Guard and attempting to activate the Illinois Guard, Trump played a similar card by invoking Title 10, which allows for the National Guard to be federalized in response to a rebellion or foreign invasion.
But there was no rebellion in Chicago — protests, certainly, but that’s different — and there was no invasion, unless you count the arrival of unwanted and, um, sizable troops from Texas.
The order is an important check on an imperial presidency and a win for state’s rights.
This is a point made by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who wrote in a legal filing, “The State seeks to protect its sovereignty, retain control over local policing, and protect the basic structure of American federalism from unprecedented intrusion.”
What a waste of time and money. The federal government spent millions of dollars to deploy hundreds of Texas National Guard members to guard an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center outside Chicago.
They deployed in October, but the legal fight restricted their activity to something between “nothing to do” and “training.” Not only did this meaningless deployment cost taxpayers, but it disrupted the lives of the soldiers.
In their dissent, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas argued that the majority on the court failed to account for violence against federal agents.
“Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted,” Alito wrote.
Such violence should be condemned and deplored, and it can also be contained by state, local and federal law enforcement.
