Illinois Sues Trump Admin to Halt National Guard Deployment; FBI Arrests Border Patrol Ramming Suspects

By Matthew Vadum of Epoch Times

The state of Illinois filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Oct. 6 in a bid to halt the federal government from deploying National Guard troops to Chicago.

The state is arguing in the new legal complaint filed in federal district court in Illinois that the federal government has no legal authority to intervene in the state’s law enforcement efforts.

“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor. To guard against this, foundational principles of American law limit the president’s authority to involve the military in domestic affairs. Those bedrock principles are in peril,” the lawsuit states.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said on Oct. 5 that President Donald Trump was directing 400 Texas National Guard members to Illinois, Oregon, and other states amid federal immigration enforcement operations.

Pritzker described the deployment as “Trump’s Invasion.”

“There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation,” the governor said.

FBI Arrests Vehicle Ramming Suspects

Meanwhile, the FBI arrested two people who allegedly drove vehicles into federal officials near Chicago, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Sunday evening.

In a statement on X, the FBI director said that two individuals “have been charged for assaulting federal officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.”

“Attack our law enforcement, and this FBI will find you and bring you to justice,” he wrote.

While Patel did not name the suspects who were arrested, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois said in court documents that Marimar Martinez, 30, and Anthony Ian Santos Ruiz, 21, were “charged in federal court with using their vehicles to assault, impede, and interfere with the work of federal agents in Chicago.”

“After striking the agents’ vehicle, the defendants’ vehicles boxed in the agents’ vehicle,” the office said in its documents, adding that the “agent was unable to move his vehicle and exited the car, at which point he fired approximately five shots from his service weapon at Martinez.”

Martinez, who was allegedly armed with a semiautomatic weapon, drove off, but paramedics found her at a repair shop about a mile away from the scene, according to the office. An ambulance took her to a hospital, where her gunshot wounds were treated.

According to the criminal complaint released by the Justice Department, three Border Patrol agents were carrying out an operation in Oak Lawn, Illinois—a suburb of Chicago—and were followed by Ruiz and Martinez.

The two are accused of pursuing the federal agents’ vehicles and running stop signs and lights, and causing an agent to lose control of a government vehicle after they allegedly rammed their vehicle into it.

After the government vehicle stopped, the agents emerged before Martinez allegedly drove the vehicle at the agents, causing one to fire shots at her, the complaint stated.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on Oct. 4 that it was forced to deploy special operations in Chicago.

The DHS accused Martinez and Ruiz of being “domestic terrorists” after the incident.

“The scene became increasingly violent as more domestic terrorists gathered and began throwing smoke, gas, rocks, and bottles at DHS law enforcement. Another domestic terrorist was arrested for assaulting CBP at the scene,” the agency said, accusing local Illinois officials of refusing to “allow local police to help secure the scene.”

On Sunday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who has been critical of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations in Chicago, said the White House will be deploying 300 National Guard members to his state.

The National Guard, he added, is being sourced from Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed this in a post on X.

“No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate,” Pritzker said in a statement.

“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”

The Epoch Times contacted the FBI and an attorney representing Martinez for comment. It was not immediately clear whether Ruiz had legal representation.