US appeals court says National Guard sent to Illinois can stay, but not deploy

CHICAGO - A US appellate court on Oct 11 ruled the hundreds of National Guard troops

sent to Chicago

can remain in Illinois but cannot be deployed, largely upholding a lower court’s halt on the mobilisation by President Donald Trump as part of his mass deportation campaign.

“It is ordered that appellants’ request for an administrative stay is granted as to the federalisation of the National Guard and denied as to the deployment of the National Guard,” said the ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The Trump administration had appealed the

lower court ruling

issued on Oct 9, arguing the troops are necessary to protect immigration agents and facilities in America’s third-largest city.

The appellate decision allows the deployment of troops to remain paused until the court can hear further arguments.

The deployment in Chicago involves 200 National Guard troops from Texas and 300 from Illinois, according to US Army Northern Command, with an initial mobilisation period of 60 days.

As for a similar troop deployment in Democratic-ruled Portland, Oregon, a three-member appeals court panel was weighing whether to lift another judge’s temporary block of the mobilisation.

Illinois and Oregon are not the first states to file legal challenges against the Trump administration’s extraordinary domestic use of the National Guard.

They follow in the

footsteps of California

– another state largely run by Democrats – which sued the Trump administration after the National Guard was deployed in Los Angeles earlier in 2025.

Federal authorities said the deployment was done to quell demonstrations sparked by sweeping raids on undocumented migrants, but local and state leaders called it an unnecessary escalation of force.

Like in other US cities, raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Chicago have sent a chill through Latino communities, with activist groups warning residents about sweeps in neighbourhoods like Cicero, Little Village and Pilsen.

“You may not see a raid, but this is affecting our community,” said Ms Casey Caballero, 37, a self-described soccer mum who is married to a naturalised US citizen.

Recent protests at an ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview have led to protesters being beaten, tear-gassed and arrested. AFP