These U.S. National Guards members say they’ll defy order to deploy in Chicago

LISTEN | Full interview with Illinois National Guard Capt. Dylan Blaha: As It Happens 6:02 Why U.S. National Guard captain says he'll defy Trump's order to deploy in Chicago

When Capt. Dylan Blaha signed up for the Illinois National Guard, he never thought he would be asked to stand against people in his own state.

National Guard members are usually deployed domestically to help respond to emergencies like natural disasters, or internationally as combat reserves for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force.

But U.S. President Donald Trump has taken the unusual step of ordering troops to hit the streets in several Democrat-led U.S. cities to quell protests against his administration's massive immigration sweeps, including, most recently, in Chicago.

“I never, never expected that I would be deployed against my neighbours, against my community,” Blaha, who is also a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 13th district of Illinois, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.

The deployment in Chicago is currently on pause pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on its legality. But when and if the order comes, Blaha says he will refuse. And he’s not the only one.

ICE raids terrorize Chicagoans: staff sergeant

Staff Sgt. Demi Palecek, a Democratic state legislative candidate in the same district as Blaha, also intends to defy orders to deploy to Chicago.

Palecek, who is Mexican, says Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown is terrorizing her community.

Immigrants who are doing everything by the book are being swept up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raids, she says. And once detained, often go missing in the system.

“We just don't know where they are,” she said. “Their families don't know where they are.”

Demonstrators, some of them children, gather for a protest against ICE raids in , Chicago's Little Village on Oct. 24. (Daniel Cole/Reuters)

According to ICE’s own statistics, 72 per cent of the 57,861 people detained since June 29 have no criminal convictions.

Palecek says people in Illinois are scared to go to work or bring their kids to school, fearing they’ll be detained. She’s in the process of working with volunteers to hand out bags of candy for children who are too afraid to go trick-or-treating this Halloween.

When Palecek knocks on doors in her district, she says people freeze when they learn she’s a member of the National Guard.

“I just tell them my story,” she said. “And that’s what they think of the National Guard — a humanitarian or someone that fights for the community, not just someone that just follows dictator's orders.”

WATCH | CBC talks to Americans who have been dragged away by ICE: ICE raids and fear tactics: Is America becoming a police state? | Duration 11:08 U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is supposed to be targeting criminal illegal immigrants, but more American citizens and legal immigrants are being rounded up. For The National, CBC’s Terence McKenna talks to people who have been dragged away by ICE agents and asks: Is America becoming a police state?

Trump's administration has told the U.S. Supreme Court he needs to deploy National Guard troops to the Chicago area in part because local police have failed to respond to what the Justice Department described as mob violence by people protesting what they feel is aggressive immigration enforcement.

Palecek, who is an anti-ICE protest organizer in Chicago, takes issue with that framing of the protests.

“We have clergy there. We have Mormons there, school teachers and dads, PTA dads. People are singing and playing the guitar and teaching each other how to knit,” she said.

“It’s just wild how they twist things.”

Trump might send ‘more than the National Guard’

Since June, Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C., and is waging court battles to dispatch them to Portland as well as Chicago.

On Wednesday, he told U.S. troops at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo that he was prepared to send other military personnel into U.S. cities, if necessary.

“If we need more than the National Guard, we'll send more than the National Guard because we're going to have safe cities," he said.

Members of California's National Guard stand outside the Paramount Business Center in Los Angeles on June 8. (Jill Connelly/Reuters)

Trump also left open the possibility that he might use the centuries-old Insurrection Act to deploy active duty troops for policing purposes and sidestep any court rulings blocking the dispatch of Guard troops into American cities.

Under federal law, National Guard and other military troops are generally prohibited from conducting civilian law enforcement. But the Insurrection Act allows for an exception, giving troops the power to directly police and arrest people.

"If I want to enact a certain act I’m allowed to do it routinely. I’d be allowed to do whatever I want," Trump said on Air Force One. "I can send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. I can send anybody I wanted.”

Blaha and Palecek could face repercussions for their stances. Refusing a lawful federal order while serving in the National Guard could lead to a court-martial, imprisonment, or a felony-level discharge.

Both say they’ve already received written warnings, and Blaha says he’s had his security clearance revoked and an investigation opened against him.

Neither the National Guard nor the U.S. Department of Defense responded to CBC's requests for comment.

But whatever happens at the Supreme Court, both Palecek and Blaha say this is not a lawful order, and soldiers have a duty to disobey unlawful orders.

“I spoke out because I believe that it's the right thing to do, and so I need to keep fighting that fight,” Blaha said.

“I believe that I'm on the right side of history. I would not be embarrassed to tell my grandkids the story. I would not be embarrassed to be in a history book,” Palecek said.

“A lot of my colleagues will not be able to say the same thing.”