Hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers assembled on Tuesday at an Army training facility outside Chicago, as President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to invoke the centuries-old Insurrection Act escalated a constitutional confrontation with Democratic-led cities and state governments.
Trump said he was considering using the law, which allows a president to deploy the military to enforce order within the United States, to bypass court rulings blocking his plans to send National Guard troops into cities such as Portland and Chicago.
The move, critics say, would mark an unprecedented expansion of presidential power.
“Well, it’s been invoked before,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, arguing that troops were needed to protect federal property and help curb crime.
“If you look at Chicago, it’s a great city where there’s a lot of crime, and if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job. It’s all very simple.”
A federal judge in Oregon has temporarily barred troop deployment to Portland, while another in Illinois has allowed operations in Chicago to proceed for now.
Texas Guard troops gathered at the Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood, about 80 kilometers southwest of Chicago, though it remains unclear when they will begin operations in the city.
The Insurrection Act, last used by President George H.W. Bush during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, permits the president to deploy military forces domestically in cases of rebellion or civil disorder. Traditionally, it has been invoked only with the consent of state governors.
Trump’s suggestion to use the law has alarmed Democrats and former military officials. Randy Manner, a retired Army major general, warned that using the act in this way “has no real precedent,” adding, “It’s absolutely the definition of dictatorship and fascism.”
Trump has ordered Guard deployments to several Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., over the objections of local leaders who accuse him of exaggerating unrest.
In Chicago, protests over immigration policies have largely been peaceful, and crime rates have dropped sharply compared with previous years.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker condemned Trump’s actions as politically motivated, accusing him of “using our service members as props and pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities.”
Illinois and Chicago filed a lawsuit on Monday to block the federalization of 300 Illinois Guard troops and the deployment of 400 Texas Guard troops to Chicago.
Federal Judge April Perry allowed the deployment to continue pending a government response due Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Justice Department confirmed that Texas troops were already en route to Illinois.
Legal experts say Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act could trigger a constitutional crisis. While the law grants broad discretion to the president, courts have rarely interpreted its limits.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the president alone can determine whether conditions for invoking the act, such as rebellion or obstruction of federal authority, have been met.
Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has sought to expand presidential power and override state resistance, a trend that civil liberties groups say risks undermining American democracy.
“It’s an extremely dangerous slope,” Manner cautioned. “It essentially says the president can do just about whatever he chooses.”
Source: Reuters
Written By Rodney Mbua
