Deployments At Our Doorstep

ICE and CBP are smashing their way not only through car windows but also through any constraints on the use of face recognition

The ACLU, the ACLU of Illinois and other free speech organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in Trump v. Illinois, the state’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s attempt to federalize National Guard troops and deploy them into Chicago and surrounding counties. The case is at the Supreme Court on the Trump administration’s emergency application seeking to stay or temporarily lift the lower courts’ orders blocking the deployment.

WASHINGTON — Free speech organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief today in the Supreme Court in Trump v. Illinois, the state’s lawsuit challenging President Trump’s attempt to federalize National Guard troops and deploy them into Chicago and surrounding counties. Both the federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit have so far blocked this deployment. The case is at the Supreme Court on the Trump administration’s emergency application seeking to stay or temporarily lift the lower courts’ orders blocking the deployment. “Protest plays an essential role in our democracy and President Trump is hellbent on suppressing it,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The president is attempting to normalize military policing of protest, but as the founders of this country made abundantly clear, turning troops on civilians is an intolerable threat to our liberties. President Trump is imperiling our First Amendment rights, and we urge the court to deny his application.” The Trump administration asserts that courts have no role, or at most only an extraordinarily deferential one, in reviewing the president’s legal and factual justifications for troop deployment. “Residents of Chicagoland peacefully but vigorously oppose the Trump Administration’s increasingly reckless and violent immigration activities,” said Colleen Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois. “It is unconscionable – and we believe unlawful – for Trump to use opposition to his administration’s policies as a pretext for mobilizing military forces, including federalized National Guard, onto our streets. Deploying troops in American cities would terrorize our communities and create an environment hostile to the free speech our Constitution guarantees.” The groups explain that the right to protest is part of the fabric of our free society, and that President Trump’s deployment of military troops in response to it is incompatible with settled First Amendment law. It underscores that the founders of this country feared and rejected the military’s use as a tool of oppression and would have viewed President Trump’s claims of unreviewable authority to deploy troops in response to political protest as an intolerable threat to liberty. “President Trump’s federalization of the National Guard in Chicago is an effort to chill political protest, and disregards the First Amendment,” said Jennifer Jones, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The First Amendment requires the government’s response to be tailored to the threat, and it forbids the government from holding peaceful demonstrators accountable for the sporadic violence of others. We urge the court to protect the right to dissent by denying the President’s request to deploy troops in Chicago.” The organizations press the Supreme Court to reject the president’s assertion that his actions here are unreviewable or at least worthy of unusual deference from the courts. U.S. history, tradition, and laws strictly limit the use of the military to police the American people, and domestic deployment of troops chills the exercise of constitutionally protected speech and association. Their brief describes the common pattern of troop deployments in Chicago, Portland, and Los Angeles so far: The Trump administration surges armed federal agents into neighborhoods, resulting in widespread rights violations. When residents exercise their First Amendment right to protest the president’s actions — overwhelmingly peacefully — federal agents respond with abusive force, including chemical weapons and stun grenades. Nevertheless, seizing on sporadic or isolated instances of unlawful conduct that local officials can address, President Trump falsely proclaims himself unable to enforce the law, declares a rebellion, and seizes command of National Guard troops over the objections of state governors. “The President’s attempt to turn the National Guard into a standing army on American soil—deploying troops against the American people—is one of the abuses of power the Constitution was written to restrain,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “Each time the President uses troops to intimidate and control civilians, it moves the nation closer to normalizing a police state. When he treats ordinary protest as rebellion and sends soldiers to enforce order in our cities, he’s not defending the nation—he’s dismantling the very freedoms that define it, all the while betraying its Constitution.” This friend-of-the-court brief comes as President Trump continues to threaten deployment of military troops and federal agents to multiple major cities, and as the Defense Department is implementing the president’s August 2025 directive for each state’s National Guard to develop a “quick reaction force,” totaling 23,000 troops, “to deal with civil disturbances and riots”— with no evidence of any need. “Americans everywhere recognize the difference between peaceful protest and open rebellion — and rightly expect their government to do the same,” said Will Creeley, legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). “The National Guard exists to protect people in genuine emergencies, not to protect the government from criticism.” Amici include the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Illinois, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Foundation for Individual Rights & Expression, and The Rutherford Institute.

MIAMI — The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today refused to preliminarily block SB 264, a discriminatory housing law in Florida. The law, which bans many immigrants from China and six other countries from purchasing homes in the state, will remain in effect while the case proceeds. The court concluded that none of the plaintiffs had “standing” to challenge SB 264’s restrictions on property purchases. Significantly, however, the court clarified that these restrictions do not apply to certain Chinese immigrants who reside in Florida and intend to remain there indefinitely. Under SB 264, people who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and whose “domicile” is in China, are prohibited from purchasing property in Florida. The sole exception is extremely narrow: Those with non-tourist visas or who have been granted asylum may purchase one residential property under two acres that is not within five miles of any “military installation.” A similar but less restrictive rule also applies to many immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria. “All people, regardless of where they come from, should be free to buy homes and build lives in Florida without fear of discrimination,” said Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “Although today’s decision is disappointing, we’ll continue to fight laws like these that blatantly target immigrants based on their national origin and ethnicity.” This pernicious law mirrors repeated efforts over the past century to weaponize false claims of “national security” against Asians and other immigrants. In the early 20th century, politicians used similar justifications to pass “alien land laws,” which barred Chinese and Japanese immigrants from becoming landowners in states across the United States, including Florida. Throughout the country, there has been a resurgence of these alien land laws – further eroding the rights of immigrants under the guise of protecting national security. “SB 264 explicitly discriminates against Chinese immigrants, and it has broader chilling effects on Asian Americans in Florida who simply want to buy a home,” said Clay Zhu, president of CALDA. “We will continue to fight SB 264 and similar ‘alien land laws’ across the country.” “SB 264 is not just unconstitutional—it harkens back to discredited century-old alien land laws that told generations of Asian Americans that this country was not their home,” said Bethany Li, executive director of AALDEF. “But our communities survived those past assaults on our rights, and we remain. We will continue to fight back for the dignity and belonging we deserve.” Although the appeals court refused to preliminarily block the law, today’s decision makes clear that certain Chinese immigrants who live in Florida and intend to remain there indefinitely are “domiciled” in Florida and thus exempt from SB 264’s restrictions on property purchases. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, DeHeng Law Offices PC, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance (CALDA), and the law firm Quinn Emanuel are representing Chinese immigrants who live, work, study, and raise families in Florida, as well as Multi-Choice Realty, a local real estate firm whose business has been harmed by the law.