Pritzker says he’s ‘not afraid’ as federal judge weighs in on state’s lawsuit

• A federal judge in Chicago has given attorneys with the Trump administration two days to respond in writing to an Illinois lawsuit that aims to block the deployment of National Guard troops.
• President Donald Trump announced he was deploying 300 federal troops over the weekend.

A federal judge in Chicago has given attorneys with the Trump administration two days to respond in writing to an Illinois lawsuit that aims to block the deployment of National Guard troops in the state.

Gov. JB Pritzker made the announcement of the federal judge’s ruling during an Oct. 6 news conference in response to President Trump announcing over the weekend he was deploying 300 Illinois National Guard troops to Chicago.

U.S. District Judge April Perry said during a brief hearing Monday she was “very troubled” by the Justice Department’s attorneys’ inability to answer her questions about where the guardsmen would be deploying and what exactly they’d be doing.

“If I were the federal government, I’d strongly urge holding off until Thursday,” she said of the plan to activate troops. But she added, it’s “up to them.”

Related: Illinois AG files lawsuit challenging Trump’s deployment of state’s National Guard

Pritzker and Raoul on the same date told reporters about a "ripeness" amid the immigration crackdown happening in Chicago that led to the filing.

"The ripeness of it is very, very important," Pritzker said. "There are certain triggers that allow you to file a lawsuit."

State officials have been aware of "talk" surrounding Trump’s plan to deploy the Illinois National Guard for weeks, Raoul told reporters, but a lawsuit was not yet ripe.

"We filed a lawsuit not just to say that we were responding, but worked hard to make sure that it’s right. It’s right by the law. It’s right by the facts. We filed it when it’s ready," Raoul said.

The boots on the ground up to now have been U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, and U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem herself—something Pritzker said is being done to cause chaos.

“I refuse to let Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino continue on this march toward autocracy,” Pritzker said. “Their plan all along has been to cause chaos and then they can use that chaos to consolidate Donald Trump’s power. They think they can fool us all into thinking that the way to get out of this crisis that they created is to give them free reign. That plan will only work if we let it.”

Pritzker also talked briefly about the importance of collecting evidence before filing a lawsuit.

"I can’t, in anticipation of one of you taking some action without any evidence of you doing it, actually file a lawsuit against you. Nor could the state of Illinois file a lawsuit against the president of the United States or the federal government or ICE without the actual calling up of those troops," he said.

Raoul argues that the deployment exceeds the administration’s authority, and that a president can only deploy those troops "under the following specific, limited circumstances: invasion, rebellion or if the federal government is unable to enforce federal laws."

None of those legal requirements exist to justify the "federalization and deployment" of the National Guard in Illinois, he said.

Pritzker said Illinois will use “every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago.”

“I’m not afraid — I am not afraid, and I won’t back down,” he said.

Tom Ackerman covers breaking news and trending news along with general news for the Springfield State Journal-Register. He can be reached at tackerman@gannett.com.