Judge Blocks Trump’s National Guard Deployment with Rebukes

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In a major rebuke to the White House, US District Judge April Perry halts Trump’s attempt to send federal troops to Illinois under “Operation Midway Blitz.”

By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk

October 10, 2025 — When a federal judge uses words like “simply unreliable” to describe the Department of Homeland Security’s justification for deploying troops inside a US city, it’s not just a judicial reprimand—it’s a constitutional alarm bell.

On Thursday, US District Judge April Perry partially granted Chicago and Illinois’ request for a temporary restraining order against US President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops. The troops were purportedly meant to protect immigration officials carrying out “Operation Midway Blitz,” an enforcement initiative targeting undocumented migrants and sanctuary city networks.

But Judge Perry’s oral ruling cut through the administration’s rhetoric with surgical precision. “In the last 48 hours,” she noted, “four separate unrelated legal decisions from different neutral parties have all cast significant doubt on DHS’s credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago,” she said.

The Law and Its Limits

At the heart of Perry’s decision lies 10 U.S. Code § 12406, a statute allowing the President to federalize the National Guard only under three conditions: invasion, rebellion, or inability to enforce federal law with regular forces. Perry reminded the courtroom that the law does not permit presidential discretion “whenever he determines” one of those conditions exists.

“There is no credible evidence of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” she declared, adding: “Allowing troops into Chicago will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.”

That fire, she implied, wasn’t an uprising—it was the administration’s own political theatre.

A Clash of Law and Power

The hearing laid bare the philosophical divide. Christopher Wells, Illinois’s attorney, argued that the nation’s founders did not use words like “rebellion, insurrection, or war” lightly. “The president believes there is a rebellion brewing in the United States? Who are the rebels?” he asked.

The Justice Department’s Eric Hamilton countered that “there doesn’t have to be an actual rebeller,” only a “danger of rebellion.” Perry dismissed this logic, seeing it as a legal fig leaf for political control.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul hailed the ruling as “a victory for the rule of law,” calling Trump’s move “an attempted occupation driven by political animus, not public safety.”

“The president does not have unfettered discretion to turn America’s military against its own citizens when they exercise their constitutional rights,” Raoul said.

Echoes of 2020—and a Dangerous Precedent

This confrontation has a familiar ring. During Trump’s first term, similar tensions flared when he dispatched federal agents to Portland, Oregon, and threatened troop deployments in Washington D.C. amid Black Lives Matter protests. Back then, the claim was restoring “law and order.” Today, it’s about “protecting immigration enforcement.” The script—and the overreach—remains the same.

For constitutional scholars, Perry’s ruling is not merely procedural. It’s a reaffirmation of the delicate balance between federal authority and state sovereignty—a tension as old as the republic itself.

When federal power becomes a political weapon, it erodes the very foundation it claims to defend. By calling out the administration’s shaky evidence and misplaced aggression, Judge Perry has momentarily steadied that balance.

But as the nation braces for further executive pushback—and a likely appeal from the Justice Department—the deeper question lingers: How many times must America’s courts remind its presidents that the rule of law is not an instrument of fear, but its antidote?