Law backs ‘noble’ Trump in sending National Guard to Chicago

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson are in court this week, trying to keep President Donald Trump from enforcing federal law.

Calling last weekend’s mob violence against immigration officials a “flimsy pretext,” they claim the president has no right to send National Guard troops to the Windy City to restore order.

Follow this closely, New Yorkers and residents of crime-ridden blue cities everywhere. 

This isn’t just about Chicago. It’s about your city, too.

For months Trump has vowed to “make our cities very, very safe” — and the Illinois lawsuit claims that’s the real reason he’s sending the Guard to Chicago: to ”fight crime,” not to protect federal buildings and personnel.

Horrors! What would be wrong with fighting crime?

The lawsuit claims “neither the Constitution nor any Act of Congress permits” the president to deploy the National Guard for “routine law enforcement, such as protest management or the suppression of violent crime or property damage.”

Sorry, but that’s false.

Check out the Insurrection Act, which Trump cited Monday. 

“It’s really up to the president to decide when to use the armed forces as a domestic police force” under the Insurrection Act, says Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice.

The law can be used “in practically any situation where the president thinks it needs to be used,” adds Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor.  

Of course, they and other leftists want to reduce that authority now that Trump is president.

Democrats, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Adam Schiff (Calif.), are pushing a law to reduce a president’s power to use troops domestically under the Insurrection Act, even when the rights of citizens are in danger.

That means now.

Your constitutional right to come and go freely is destroyed if you fear being shot leaving home — a daily concern in some Chicago neighborhoods.

Retailers’ property rights are eviscerated when shoplifters aren’t prosecuted — as we see here in New York and elsewhere.   

As of January, Illinois law requires convicted criminals to be called “justice impacted individuals,” not offenders or felons.

Hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

When cities controlled by left-wing pols cater to the criminals, someone needs to secure the rights of the law-abiding public.

That’s where the Insurrection Act comes in.

It has a noble past: It was used by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy to protect the constitutional rights of African Americans and end school segregation in the South.

On the other hand, Pritzker is citing an ignoble law, the Posse Comitatus Act, to challenge Trump.

Posse Comitatus was enacted in 1878 to prevent the president from using federal troops to shield newly freed slaves from terror and abuse in the South. 

Shame on Pritzker’s team for resurrecting that evil history.

Pritzker and Johnson’s lawsuit also ignores the very real threats federal immigration officials are facing.

Last week ICE agents were surrounded and menaced by angry mobs, and local police were told to stand down rather than rescue them.

Nothing flimsy about their need for protection.

Pritzker calls the National Guard deployment “an invasion.” 

But these men and women are our neighbors and fellow Americans — and the governor would never use the “i word” to describe the way foreigners, including gang members, have surged across the southern border.

Federal District Court Judge April Perry, a Biden appointee, refused to halt Trump’s deployment Monday.

She’s scheduled a Thursday hearing on Illinois’ request for a temporary restraining order against the president.

Perry should keep in mind that the Supreme Court has barred courts from second-guessing the president’s domestic use of troops.  

“We are all of the opinion that the decision . . . belongs exclusively to the President,” Justice Joseph Story wrote for the Court in the 1827 case Martin v. Mott.

He is the “sole and exclusive judge,” Story affirmed.  

If Perry rules that Trump erred in sending troops, she will be overturned on appeal.

Leftist law professors analyzing Illinois’ complaint are conveniently forgetting Martin v. Mott, suggesting instead that precedents applying to all other presidents don’t apply to Trump.  Ridiculous.

So while Judge Perry likely won’t dwell on Pritzker’s argument that Trump is really coming to Chicago to fight crime, it’s time for the nation to consider that option.

That, or voters should start electing urban leaders who tackle crime, rather than pander to criminals.

The risk of being gunned down and killed in Chicago is about three times higher than in Los Angeles, according to FBI data.

And some smaller cities, like Indianapolis and Louisville, have gun homicide rates that are higher still.

New York City is fortunate to have Jessica Tisch at the helm of the NYPD.

She has made it clear the Guard is not needed here: Shootings are at an all-time low, and robberies, burglaries and felony assaults are all trending down.

But Zohran Mamdani, a defund-the-police zealot, is leading in the mayor’s race.

If Mamdani wins and unleashes criminal bedlam, expect law-abiding New Yorkers to seek any protection they can get.  

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of SAVENYC.org.