Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act if courts continue to ‘hold us up’

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump on Monday suggested he could invoke the Insurrection Act if federal courts continue to block his administration’s efforts to send National Guard units into cities facing unrest.

The Insurrection Act is a centuries-old law that allows a president to deploy US troops on American soil.

“So far it hasn’t been necessary, but we have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”

“I want to make sure people aren’t killed. We have to make sure our cities are safe,” he added.

Donald Trump faces legal pushback over National Guard deployment

Trump’s comments came amid growing legal challenges to his deployment orders. On Monday, the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago filed a lawsuit calling the president’s move to federalize National Guard troops “patently unlawful.”

Officials in Oregon have filed a similar challenge after a judge twice blocked the deployment of Guard troops to Portland, where protests have continued outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

Judge orders swift federal response to Illinois suit

A federal judge in Chicago has given the Trump administration two days to respond to Illinois’ lawsuit, but declined to immediately block the deployment.

Judge April Perry set a midnight Wednesday deadline for the administration’s reply and scheduled a Thursday hearing on the case.

The Illinois complaint claims the deployment is politically motivated and unlawful, saying, “These advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War on Chicago and Illinois’ are unlawful and dangerous.”

“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the lawsuit adds.

Trump has maintained that the troops are needed to fight violent crime in Chicago and to protect federal immigration agents in the city, which has sanctuary policies limiting cooperation with ICE.

Donald Trump says Red-State Governors offered help, Democrats push back

Despite the lawsuits, Trump said several Republican governors have volunteered to assist with troop deployments.

“Every one of them is willing to offer whatever we need,” Trump said. “Every one of the red state governors is ready because they want our agents protected.”

He also claimed to have heard from some Democratic governors who privately support the initiative, though he didn’t name them.