President Trump has declared that he wants to send the National Guard into Chicago, a move that would set himself up for a bigger legal challenge and riskier political move compared to his crackdown in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s decision to send the National Guard into the nation’s capital, which the White House has touted as a major success, is protected under the Home Rule Act that gives the president the authority to take control of the District’s police department for up to 30 days.

But the president doesn’t have that authority in sovereign states. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) has warned the president against deploying the National Guard to Chicago, demonstrating a power struggle that’s sure to spotlight how Democrats will handle Trump on the matter.

Trump in early August announced he was taking federal control of the D.C. police department and deploying the National Guard. By September, more than 3,300 federal law enforcement from 22 agencies patrol the streets nightly, more than 1,700 arrests have been made and more than 190 firearms have been seized, according to the White House.

The president’s tone when it comes to Chicago has also shifted. He suggested Tuesday he could go all in, but then also insisted he wanted governors to ask him to help activate the National Guard in their states, appearing to acknowledge some limits to his overarching authority he can exercise in D.C. but not elsewhere.

“The analogous governor of D.C. is the president,” said Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force judge advocate and law professor at Southwestern Law School.

But in Chicago, the situation is very different.

“Most of what Trump has done in D.C. is not repeatable anywhere else,” said Joseph Nunn, counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.

“Whatever Trump says, the federal government has no power to go into Chicago and take over local policing and local law enforcement there.”

Legal fight imminent

Any effort to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago would likely face a legal fight, like the one that has played out in Los Angeles since Trump federalized part of California’s National Guard after immigration protests turned violent in June.

Trump

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