What to know about National Guard deployments in Memphis and other cities

Judges blocked President Donald Trump’s plans to deploy the National Guard to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, but troops are now patrolling Memphis, Tennessee, with the blessing of the state’s governor.

The soldiers, dressed in Guard fatigues and protective vests, with weapons in their holsters, patrolled a nearby Bass Pro Shops and tourist welcome center on the banks of the Mississippi River on Friday. It is unclear how many troops have been deployed to Memphis.

Trump has also sent or considered sending troops to other cities, including Baltimore; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The federal government says troops support immigration agents and protect federal property.

Guard troops in Memphis remain under the command of Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who supports their use to strengthen federal crime enforcement.

By contrast, Trump attempted to deploy National Guard troops — including some from Texas and California — to Portland and Chicago after taking control of them himself, over the objections of state and local leaders who say such interference violates their sovereignty and federal law. Federal courts in Illinois and Oregon this week blocked Trump’s efforts to send troops to those cities.

Here’s where things stand:

Trump announced plans Sept. 15 to deploy the Guard to Memphis, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, embraced the plan to bolster law enforcement operations there.

Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat who did not request the deployment, said he hopes the task force will target violent offenders rather than frighten, harass or intimidate residents.

Federal officials say agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service have made hundreds of arrests and issued more than 2,800 traffic citations since the task force began operating in Memphis on Sept. 29.

Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth said they were denied access Friday to the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, a site of clashes between protesters and federal agents.

“It is appalling that two United States senators are not allowed to tour these facilities,” Duckworth said. “What are you afraid of?” »

The senators said they had oversight power over Congress.

“There’s something going on in there that they don’t want us to see,” Durbin said. “I don’t know what it is.”

A federal judge on Thursday blocked the deployment of troops to Chicago for at least two weeks. The Justice Department appealed the next day.

U.S. District Judge April Perry in Chicago said the Trump administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which guarantees due process and equal protection, when it ordered National Guard troops into the city.

In a written order Friday explaining his reasoning, Perry highlighted the country’s long aversion to the idea of ​​military involvement in maintaining domestic order.

“Even the founding father most ardently in favor of a strong federal government” – Alexander Hamilton – “did not believe that one state’s militia could be sent to another state for political retaliation,” Perry wrote.

Hamilton called this notion “absurd.”

“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard on the streets of American cities like Chicago,” said Governor JB Pritzker.

Another court battle in Oregon had delayed a similar troop deployment to Portland. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case Thursday.

Lt. Cmdr. Theresa Meadows, a spokeswoman for U.S. Northern Command, said troops sent to Portland and Chicago “are not conducting any operational activities at this time.”

Five hundred Guardsmen from Texas and Illinois arrived this week at a U.S. Army Reserve center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago, and have been activated for 60 days.

They began patrolling Thursday morning behind portable fences outside the ICE Broadview facility.

A federal judge ordered ICE late Thursday to remove a separate 8-foot-tall fence outside the Broadview facility after the Village of Broadview said it was illegally blocking a public street.

Also Thursday, another federal judge in Illinois temporarily ordered federal agents to wear badges and barred them from using certain riot weapons against peaceful protesters and journalists outside ICE facilities, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago.

In Chicago, federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment against a woman and a man accused of using their vehicles to hit and surround a Border Patrol agent’s vehicle last Saturday.

The officer got out of his car and fired five shots at Marimar Martinez, 30, who was treated at a hospital. The indictment filed Thursday formalizes charges of assaulting a federal agent with a dangerous weapon – a vehicle. Anthony Ruiz, 21, is also charged.

___

Associated Press journalists across the United States contributed, including Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Sophia Tareen and Christine Fernando in Chicago; and Josh Boak and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, DC