Judges have blocked President Donald Trump’s plans Deployment of the National Guard In Chicago and in Portland, Oregon, but the troops are there now Patrols in MemphisIn Tennessee, with the blessing of the state’s governor.
The soldiers, wearing Guard uniforms and body armor, and carrying rifles in their holsters, patrolled Bass Pro Shops and a nearby tourist reception center beside the Mississippi River on Friday. It was not clear how many troops were deployed in Memphis.
Trump has sent or discussed sending troops to other cities as well, including Baltimore; the District of Columbia; New Orleans. And the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The federal government says the troops support immigration agents and protect federal property.
The Guard in Memphis remains under the command of Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who supports using them to bolster the federal crackdown on crime.
By contrast, Trump tried to deploy National Guard troops — including some from Texas and California — to Portland and Chicago after he took control of them himself. Amid objections from state and local leaders Who say such interference violates their sovereignty and federal law. Federal courts in Illinois and Oregon this week blocked Trump’s efforts to send troops to those cities.
Here’s where things stand:
Trump Announced on September 15 He intends to deploy the Guard in Memphis, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, has adopted a plan to strengthen law enforcement operations there.
Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat who did not request the release, said he hopes the task force will target violent offenders rather than intimidate, harass or intimidate residents.
Agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service have made hundreds of arrests and issued more than 2,800 traffic tickets since the task force began working in Memphis on Sept. 29, federal officials say.
Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth said they were denied access on Friday Ice facility In Broadview, Illinois, A Site of confrontations Between protesters and federal agents.
“It is appalling that two U.S. senators are not allowed to visit this facility,” Duckworth said. “What are you afraid of?”
The senators said they have oversight authority from Congress.
“There’s something going on over there that they don’t want us to see,” Durbin said. “I don’t know what it is.”
A federal judge on Thursday blocked the deployment of troops in Chicago for at least two weeks. The Ministry of Justice appealed the ruling the next day.
US District Judge April Perry in Chicago said the Trump administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection, when he ordered National Guard troops into the city.
In a written order on Friday outlining her rationale, Perry cited the country’s longstanding aversion to military intervention in local police.
“Even the Founding Father who was most ardent in favor of a strong federal government”—Alexander Hamilton—“did not believe that a militia of one state could be sent into another state for purposes of political revenge,” Perry wrote.
Hamilton described this idea as “preposterous.”
State Governor JB Pritzker said: “The court confirmed what we all know: there is no credible evidence of an insurrection in the state of Illinois. The National Guard has no place on the streets of American cities like Chicago.”
Another court battle in Oregon I was late earlier Deploy similar forces in Portland. The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case on Thursday.
Lieutenant Commander. Teresa Meadows, a spokeswoman for US Northern Command, said forces sent to Portland and Chicago “are not conducting any operational activities at this time.”
Five hundred Guard members from Texas and Illinois Arrived this week At the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago, it was activated for 60 days.
They began patrolling Thursday morning behind portable fences outside the ICE Broadview facility.
A federal judge late Thursday ordered ICE to remove a separate clip 8-foot (2.4 m) fence. outside a Broadview facility after the Village of Broadview said it illegally closed a public street.
Also Thursday, another federal judge in Illinois temporarily ordered federal agents to wear badges and banned them from wearing them Using some riot weapons against peaceful protesters and journalists outside an ICE facility, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago.
In Chicago, federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment against a woman and a man accused of using their cars to hit and detain a Border Patrol agent’s car last Saturday.
proxy He got out of his car and fired five shots For Marimar Martinez, 30, who was treated at the hospital. The indictment filed Thursday formalizes charges of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon — a motor vehicle. Anthony Ruiz, 21, is also charged.
___
Associated Press reporters across the U.S. contributed, including Adrian Saenz in Memphis, Tennessee; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Sophia Tarin and Christine Fernando in Chicago; and Josh Bock and Konstantin Torobin in Washington, DC