Trump Threatens to Invoke Insurrection Act Amid ’National Guard’ Deployment Showdown

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump has signaled that he is prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act if courts or state officials continue to obstruct his plans to deploy "National Guard" troops in Democratic-led cities, as legal and political clashes intensify over his administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign.

On Monday, Illinois officials filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump’s attempt to send Guard units to Chicago, hours after a federal judge in Oregon halted a similar deployment to Portland. While an Illinois judge declined to immediately suspend the president’s order, a hearing has been scheduled for Thursday, according to Governor JB Pritzker.

The legal challenge followed a violent weekend in Chicago, where authorities reported that a woman was shot by a federal agent after Border Patrol vehicles were boxed in and struck by other cars. Local officials condemned the incident, and Chicago’s police superintendent dismissed claims that city officers were siding with federal agents in such confrontations.

Trump administration officials have described cities like Chicago and Portland as “lawless war zones” and defended the military deployments as necessary to curb illegal immigration and restore order. State leaders, however, argue that the president’s intervention is politically motivated and unconstitutional.

“These advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘war on Chicago and Illinois’ are unlawful and dangerous,” the lawsuit stated, while Governor Pritzker accused Trump of “using our service members as political props and pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities”.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump reiterated his willingness to use the Insurrection Act — a law dating back to 1807 that allows the president to deploy US troops for domestic law enforcement under extreme circumstances.

“I’d do it if it was necessary,” Trump told reporters. “If people were being killed and courts or governors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that. We have to make sure our cities are safe”.

The act was last invoked in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush to quell riots in Los Angeles. Trump characterized the measure as a last resort, but defended his readiness to use it, saying some US cities had become “hellholes, worse than Afghanistan.”

The White House is expected to appeal the federal ruling blocking troop deployment in Portland, which will remain in effect until at least October 19. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have vowed to resist what they describe as an impending “threat of military occupation” in American cities.