For U.S. District Judge April Perry, it all came down to credibility.
Should she believe local law enforcement officials, who say they have protests over President Donald Trump’s immigration campaign well in hand? Or Trump, whose aides claim a “brazen new form of hostility” targeting federal law enforcement had broken out in Illinois?
In the end, Perry concluded the Trump administration’s “perception of events” around Chicago “are simply unreliable.” She’d seen “no credible evidence that there is danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” nor that Trump “is unable … to execute the laws of the United States.”
And after a historic hearing that lasted more than three hours at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, the judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from “ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.”
Perry ruled orally from the bench and promised a written opinion Friday. The order is effective for two weeks, and Perry set a hearing for Oct. 22 to determine whether it should be extended for two more. Trump’s lawyers are sure to appeal in the meantime.
Gov. JB Pritzker reacted in a statement by saying, “Donald Trump is not a king — and his administration is not above the law.”
“Today, the court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul told reporters after court that “this is an important decision not just for the state of Illinois, but for the entire country.”
“The question of state sovereignty was addressed in this decision. The question of whether or not the president of the United States should have unfettered authority to militarize our cities was answered today,” Raoul said.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Perry “established that the Trump administration is unreliable. They lie, misrepresent, and put people in danger.”
But White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson insisted that Trump “exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets” amid “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness, that local leaders like Pritzker have refused to step in to quell.”
“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities and we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” Jackson said.
The hearing amounted to one of the biggest legal showdowns yet between Trump and Illinois’ Democratic leaders, including Pritzker, Raoul and Johnson. Raoul and Johnson both watched portions of Thursday’s hearing from the courtroom gallery.
It also took on national significance as Trump pushes for deployment in cities long known to be Democratic strongholds. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which considers cases from western states, also heard arguments Thursday over deployment in Oregon.
In crafting her scathing ruling, Perry turned to recent events in the same federal courthouse in which she once served as a prosecutor. In recent days it has seen grand jurors reject criminal charges brought by a U.S. attorney’s office long revered for its credibility, and a judge rule against the Department of Homeland Security when it comes to the treatment of protesters.
“In the last 48 hours, in four separate, unrelated legal decisions from different neutral parties, they all cast significant doubt on DHS’ credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago,” Perry said.
However, about 200 troops from Texas and 14 from California had already started arriving earlier this week, joining about 300 federalized Illinois National Guard troops. Texas National Guard members were spotted Thursday morning at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.
Asked after court Thursday how Perry’s ruling affects those troops, Raoul said, “There’s a temporary restraining order that they should not be active within the state of Illinois.”
When asked if he’d direct them to leave, Raoul said it’s up to the Trump administration “to abide by the judge’s order.”
Earlier Thursday, Perry spent 80 minutes interrogating Eric Hamilton, the Justice Department lawyer who’s been defending deployment of National Guard troops across the country. He said the “brazen new form of hostility” toward the feds comes not from protesters, but “violent resistance to duly enacted immigration laws.”
Still, Perry told him there’d been peace outside a Broadview ICE facility for 19 years, until federal border agents showed up this summer. She asked him if it mattered, under the law, if Trump’s claimed inability to execute federal law was by his “own provocation?”
Hamilton told her it did not.
“The fact still remains,” Hamilton told the judge, “that we are seeing sustained violence against federal personnel and property in Illinois.”
Perry questioned Hamilton about the treatment of protesters by federal agents and about the accuracy of a claim that the National Guard had been called upon to protect the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. It had not.
She tested the boundaries of Hamilton’s arguments, asked whether she should take Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks and social media posts into account, and said she struggled with Hamilton’s reluctance to set clear limits on the deployment.
“You have not committed that they are only going to be deployed at federal property or in support of immigration and customs enforcement,” Perry told Hamilton. “I am very much struggling to figure out where this would ever stop.”
This all thrust Perry onto the national stage 11 months after joining the bench. Former President Joe Biden once nominated her to be Chicago’s top federal prosecutor. That nomination was blocked by then-U.S. Sen. JD Vance, who is now Trump’s vice president.
Biden then nominated her to be a judge.
Despite the gravity of the moment, Perry managed to lighten the mood at times with quips like “riddle me this,” talk of people doing things for “funsies,” and comparing claims of minor vandalism at Broadview’s immigration facility to a “Carrie Underwood song.”
She also took a moment to acknowledge the threats being leveled toward public officials everywhere.
“Mine started about 10 minutes after I got this case,” Perry said.
Arguments revolved around a federal law that allows the president to call into federal service members of the National Guard of any state if there is an invasion or rebellion — or if the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
Perry made reference to a grand jury’s so-called “no bill,” in which it refused prosecutors’ request for an indictment. She asked Hamilton about a claim in one filing about two people who had been arrested outside the Broadview facility on Sept. 27 “armed with loaded handguns.”
“Are these the guns that were seized from Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo?” Perry asked. She added that “those were the two people who were no-billed by the grand jury.”
Hamilton told the judge, “I have no idea.”
The couple had been carrying the weapons lawfully.
The fact that the Trump administration would point to such a case “indicates to me a certain lack of credibility,” Perry said.
She also asked Hamilton whether the troops will be “solving crime in Chicago?” Hamilton said they would, to an extent, through a mission to protect ICE facilities and personnel.
Perry later questioned Illinois attorney Christopher Wells for only 15 minutes. She pressed Wells on whether Trump actually owes an explanation to the state, or even to her, for why he decided to deploy the troops.
Perry also noted that the state sought an order blocking the deployment of military troops in general, in addition to the National Guard. She asked Wells if there’s “any reason to believe that’s about to happen?”
“Specifically?” she asked. “Other than just your gut?”
“The gut is a powerful instinct in this instance,” Wells told her.
“Well, I need evidence,” Perry retorted.
Later, during closing arguments, Wells cited a separate appellate court ruling on the matter that said courts have to be “highly deferential” to the president when it comes to the law in question.
He also said the ruling mentions “public virtue.”
“This case is replete with evidence of bad faith, of an abandonment of public virtue,” he said. “Of a lack of honest devotion to the public interest and of a grave risk of usurpation or wanton tyranny.”