Nine former service secretaries and retired four-star admirals and generals filed an amicus brief today with the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, highlighting the growing danger politicized domestic deployments pose to troops and to the public:

  • Former Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera
  • Former Secretary of the Navy Sean O’Keefe 
  • Admiral Steve Abbot, United States Navy (Retired)
  • Admiral Thad Allen, United States Coast Guard (Retired)
  • General George Casey, United States Army (Retired)
  • General Michael Hayden, United States Air Force (Retired)
  • Admiral Samuel Jones Locklear, III, United States Navy (Retired)
  • General Craig McKinley, United States Air Force (Retired)
  • Admiral Bill Owens, United States Navy (Retired)

These former national security leaders filed this brief in Illinois v. Trump, a lawsuit in which Illinois is asking the court to block the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops in Chicago.   

“Over the short period of only the past several months, the Administration has abandoned the American tradition against domestic deployment of the military, embracing instead what the District Court of Oregon described as ‘martial law,’” they wrote. “The Administration has suggested it plans to use United States cities as ‘training grounds’ for the military, turning our troops on the ‘enemy within’ – the very people they have proudly sworn to protect, with their own lives if necessary. Thousands of troops have been deployed in at least five such communities over the objection of local leaders, with the promise of more.”

Keeping troops off our streets, and out of civil affairs, was a priority of the founders and framers – who came of age when British troops patrolled communities and suppressed free speech. They encoded our earliest legal documents with prohibitions on a standing army and troops entering private property. Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act to specifically prohibit troops from acting as domestic law enforcement without express congressional approval. 

Rising domestic deployments – especially when they are ordered against the wishes of the state and/or local governments where those deployments will occur – risk politicizing our military and militarizing our streets. This is a toxic combination for our constitutional democracy.

To read the entire brief, click here.

These former national security leaders filed similar briefs in response to the National Guard deployments to Los Angeles and Washington D.C. To read those briefs and other work produced by the group, click here. If you have any questions, or would like to speak with one of the signatories, don’t hesitate to reach out.