HIGH COURT CHECKS TRUMP'S POWER

Justices rule president lacked the authority to deploy National Guard to Chicago.

- BY DAVID G. SAVAGE

ASHLEE REZIN Chicago Sun-Times FEDERAL AGENTS break a window, detaining two men outside a Home Depot in Evanston, Ill., this month.

The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump's appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the president had exaggerated the threat and overstepped his authority.

The decision is a major defeat for Trump and his broad claim that he had the power to deploy militia troops in U.S. cities.

In an unsigned order, the court said the Militia Act allows the president to deploy the National Guard only if the regular U.S. armed forces were unable to quell violence.

The law dating to 1903 says the president may call up and deploy the National Guard if he faces the threat of an invasion or a rebellion or is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

That phrase turned out to be crucial.

Trump’s lawyers assumed it referred to the police and federal agents. But after taking a close look, the justices concluded it referred to the regular U.S. military, not civilian law enforcement or the National Guard.

“To call the Guard into active federal service under the [Militia Act], the President must be ‘unable’ with the regular military ‘to execute the laws of the United States,’” the court said in Trump vs. Illinois.

That standard will rarely be met, the court added.