Chicago, Portland fight Trump's National Guard deployments in court hearings Thursday

The judge said the administration's directives violate the Constitution and would “only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started."

A judge in Chicago on Thursday issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois, finding that the Trump administration’s directive violates the Constitution and would “only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.”

In handing down her order, U.S. District Judge April Perry also ripped the Department of Homeland Security's factual accounts of crime its agents have been encountering recently, citing judicial findings in other cases over the past two days that the agency has been using "unreliable evidence."

Those accounts cast "significant doubt on DHS’s credibility on what is going on in the streets of Chicago."

Perry delivered her order after an hourslong hearing in which she appeared frustrated at times, as a lawyer for the Justice Department couldn’t answer questions about what exactly the National Guard troops would be authorized to do.

Perry said she would issue a written decision Friday elaborating on her reasoning for the restraining order.