Lawsuits Target Trump, Noem to Beat Back Federal 'War on Chicago'

As President Donald Trump continues to terrorize Chicago and its suburbs with the anti-immigrant Operation Midway Blitz, the city, the state of Illinois, journalists, and protesters on Monday filed a pair of federal lawsuits against the administration's "invasion."

The White House confirmed Saturday that the president authorized 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to "protect federal officers and assets" in Chicago, and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said Sunday that Trump is also "ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States."

Following a federal judge's ruling against Trump deploying Oregon National Guard troops over protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Chicago and Illinois sued Trump; the US Army and its secretary, Daniel Driscoll; and the departments of Defense and Homeland Security and their respective secretaries, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem.

"The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly for the reason that their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president's favor," Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement. "I am absolutely committed to upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law, which is why my office is both challenging and seeking an order to stop unlawful National Guard deployment in Illinois."

Mary Richardson-Lowry, the city of Chicago's top lawyer, said that "I stand with the attorney general in challenging the Trump administration's illegal deployment of the National Guard. This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law."

Another suit stemming from the administration's violent actions in Illinois was filed in the same court Monday morning, by journalists and peaceful protesters challenging First Amendment violations at an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, where federal agents have made headlines for firing a chemical agent at a reporter's vehicle "absolutely unprovoked" and throwing a congressional candidate to the ground.

"The federal government has sent federal forces to cities across the United States in order to prevent the press, elected officials, religious leaders, and civilians engaged in peaceful protest from exercising their First Amendment rights," states that complaint. "All over the country, federal agents have shot, gassed, and detained individuals engaged in cherished and protected activities."

"Never in modern times has the federal government undermined bedrock constitutional protections on this scale or usurped states' police power by directing federal agents to carry out an illegal mission against the people for the government's own benefit," the filing continues.

"This lawsuit concerns the right of the demonstrator plaintiffs to exercise their First Amendment rights to peacefully protest and to exercise their religion in the area around the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, and in other places where demonstrators are opposing the administration's federal incursion into the Chicagoland area," the complaint adds. "And it concerns the rights of the journalist plaintiffs to observe, record, and report on the federal agents' activities and the public’s demonstrations against them."

In this case, Loevy + Loevy, the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago School of Law, First Defense Legal Aid, Protect Democracy, and the ACLU of Illinois are representing protesters, individual journalists, and media organizations, including the outlet Block Club Chicago.

Since September 19, Block Club Chicago has dedicated many of its resources to covering the protests at the Broadview building and ICE's brutal response, said executive editor and co-founder Stephanie Lulay in a statement.

"During that time, at least four of our employees or freelancers have told me that they were hit with pepper balls and subjected to tear gas by federal agents at Broadview," she said. "We intend to continue to report on the protests, but our ability to do so, to the standards that we hold ourselves to, continues to be impacted by our fears of violence and arrests of our employees and contractors."

Plaintiff David Black, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, said that ICE responded to his peaceful expression of his religion by spraying tear gas in his face and repeatedly shooting him in the head with near-lethal projectiles.

"I extended my arms, palms outstretched toward the ICE officers, in a traditional Christian posture of prayer and blessing," he pastor detailed. "Without any warning, and without any order or request that I and others disperse, I was suddenly fired upon by ICE officers. In rapid fire, I was hit seven times on my arms, face, and torso with exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent. It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my head, which they struck twice."

In this case, the plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order "against the government's violent suppression of free speech," their attorneys explained. "A similar motion was filed and granted in Los Angeles last month, after federal troops deployed the same sorts of tactics against journalists and protesters."

Separately on Monday, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order establishing "ICE-free zones," barring the agency from using "city-owned or controlled parking lots, vacant lots, and garages as staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases."

During a press conference, Johnson pointed to various recent incidents, including last week's immigration raid of a South Shore building "managed by a slumlord," in which agents "terrorized" residents, including unclothed children, in the middle of the night, as well as ICE's fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez last month in the suburb of Franklin Park.

"We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city that are not accountable to the people of Chicago. Their actions put all Chicagoans at risk," he declared. "The Trump administration must end the war on Chicago."