A federal judge Monday declined to block the deployment of National Guard units to Illinois, a mobilization that the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, labeled an “unconstitutional invasion” by the federal government, even as President Donald Trump threatened to assume emergency powers to bypass court battles and send in the troops.
The judge’s ruling in Illinois, which allows the Trump-ordered deployment to move ahead for now, came as a military official said 200 troops from the Texas Guard were headed to Illinois. A similar effort to deploy Texas troops in Portland, Oregon, has been blocked by a judge for now.
As the legal battles intensified, both sides engaged in an increasingly caustic war of words, with administration officials accusing protesters in Portland of engaging in insurrectio