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WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump’s appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the president had exaggerated the threat and overstepped his authority.

The decision is a major defeat for Trump and his broad claim that he had the power to deploy military forces in U.S. cities.

In an unsigned order, the court said the Militia Act allows the president to deploy the National Guard only if U.S. military forces were unable to quell violence.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois. The President has not invoked a statute that provides an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act,” the court said.

Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the deployments in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after ruling that judges must defer to the president.

But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Dec. 10 that the federalized National Guard troops in Los Angeles must be returned to the control of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump’s lawyers had not claimed in their appeal that the president had the authority to deploy the military for ordinary law enforcement in the city. Instead, they said the Guard troops would be deployed “to protect federal officers and federal property.”

The two sides in the Chicago case, like in Portland, told dramatically different stories about the circumstances leading to Trump’s order.

Democratic officials in Illinois said small groups of protesters objected to the aggressive enforcement tactics used by federal immigration agents. They said police were able to contain the protests, clear the entrances and prevent violence.

By contrast, administration officials described repeated instances of disruption, confrontation and violence in Chicago. They said immigration agents were harassed and blocked from doing their jobs, and they needed the protection the National Guard could supply.

Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the president had the authority to deploy the Guard if agents could not enforce the immigration laws.

“Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law,” Trump called up the National Guard “to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence,” he told the court in an emergency appeal filed in mid-October.

Illinois state lawyers disputed the administration’s account.

“The evidence shows that federal facilities in Illinois remain open, the individuals who have violated the law by attacking federal authorities have been arrested, and enforcement of immigration law in Illinois has only increased in recent weeks,” state Solicitor Gen. Jane Elinor Notz said in response to the administration’s appeal.

The Constitution gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

The Militia Act of 1903 says the president may call up and deploy the National Guard if he faces an invasion, a rebellion or is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

Trump’s lawyers said that referred to police and federal agents. But after taking a closer look, the court concluded it referred to the regular military forces. By that standard, the president’s authority to deploy the National Guard comes only after the military has failed to quell violence.

But on Oct. 29, the justices asked both sides to explain what the law meant when it referred to the “regular forces.”

Until then, both sides had assumed it referred to federal agents and police, not the military.

Trump’s lawyers stuck to their position. They said the law referred to the “civilian forces that regularly execute the laws,” not the military.

If those civilians cannot enforce the law, “there is a strong tradition in this country of favoring the use of the military rather than the standing military to quell domestic disturbances,” they said.

State attorneys for Illinois said the “regular forces” are the “full-time, professional military.” And they said the president could not “even plausibly argue” that the U.S. soldiers were required to enforce the law in Chicago.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Newsom filed a brief in the Chicago case that warned of the danger of the president using the military in American cities.

“On June 7, for the first time in our Nation’s history, the President invoked [U.S. law] to federalize a State’s National Guard over the objections of the State’s Governor,” they said.

“President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth transferred 4,000 members of California’s National Guard — one in three of the Guard’s total active members — to federal control to serve in a civilian law enforcement role on the streets of Los Angeles and other communities in Southern California.”

That has proved to be “the opening salvo in an effort to transform the role of the military in American society,” they said. “At no prior point in our history has the President used the military this way: as his own personal police force, to be deployed for whatever law enforcement missions he deems appropriate.

“What the federal government seeks is a standing army, drawn from state militias, deployed at the direction of the President on a nationwide basis, for civilian law enforcement purposes, for an indefinite period of time,” they said.

Dozens of California National Guard troops under President Trump’s command apparently slipped out of Los Angeles under cover of darkness early Sunday morning, ahead of an appellate court’s order to be gone by noon Monday.

Administration officials would not immediately confirm whether the troops had decamped. But video taken outside the Roybal Federal Building downtown just after midnight on Sunday and reviewed by The Times shows a large tactical truck and four white passenger vans leaving the facility, which has been patrolled by armed soldiers since June.

About 300 California troops remain under federal control, some 100 of whom were still active in Los Angeles as of last week, court records show.

“There were more than usual, and all of them left — there was not a single one that stayed,” said protester Rosa Martinez, who has demonstrated outside the federal building for months and was there Sunday.

Troops were spotted briefly later that day, but had not been seen again as of Monday afternoon, Martinez said.

The development that forced the troops to leave was part of a sprawling legal fight for control of federalized soldiers nationwide that remains ongoing.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order late Friday but softened an even more stringent edict from a lower court judge last week that would have forced the president to relinquish command of the state’s forces. Trump federalized thousands of California National Guard troops in June troops to quell unrest over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

“For the first time in six months, there will be no military deployed on the streets of Los Angeles,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement. “While this decision is not final, it is a gratifying and hard-fought step in the right direction.”

The ruling Friday came from the same three-judge panel that handed the president one of his most sweeping second-term victories this summer, after it found that the California deployment could go forward under an obscure and virtually untested subsection of the law.

That precedent set a “great level of deference” as the standard of review for deployments that have since mushroomed across the country, circumscribing debate even in courts where it is not legally binding.

But the so-called Newsom standard — California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit — has drawn intense scrutiny and increasingly public rebuke in recent weeks, even as the Trump administration argues it affords the administration new and greater powers.

In October, the 7th Circuit — the appellate court that covers Illinois — found the president’s claims had “insufficient evidence,” upholding a block on a troop deployment in and around Chicago.

“Even applying great deference to the administration’s view of the facts … there is insufficient evidence that protest activity in Illinois has significantly impeded the ability of federal officers to execute federal immigration laws,” the panel wrote.

That ruling is now under review at the Supreme Court.

In November, the 9th Circuit vacated its earlier decision allowing Trump’s Oregon federalization to go forward amid claims the Justice Department misrepresented important facts in its filings. That case is under review by a larger panel of the appellate division, with a decision expected early next year.

Despite mounting pressure, Justice Department lawyers have doubled down on their claims of near-total power, arguing that federalized troops remain under the president’s command in perpetuity, and that courts have no role in reviewing their deployment.

When Judge Mark J. Bennett asked the Department of Justice whether federalized troops could “stay called up forever” under the government’s reading of the statute at a hearing in October, the answer was an unequivocal yes.

“There’s not a word in the statute that talks about how long they can remain in federal service,” Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Eric McArthur said.

For now, the fate of 300 federalized California soldiers remains in limbo, though troops are currently barred by court orders from deployment in California and Oregon.

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

SEOUL, Dec. 12 (UPI) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un praised his country’s military modernization efforts as addressing security challenges “effectively and correctly” at a key ruling party meeting, state-run media reported Friday.

Kim said the regime’s push to strengthen defense capabilities was the “exact” direction to ensure North Korea’s security amid shifting geopolitical dynamics, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The comments came as the three-day enlarged plenary meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s Central Committee wrapped up on Thursday. The session reviewed this year’s policy implementation results and laid groundwork for a key party congress set for early next year.

During his remarks, the North Korean leader also highlighted the deployment of troops to Russia as a major achievement of the country’s defense strategy.

“The signal military gains made by … the Korean People’s Army in the overseas military operations over the past nearly one year demonstrated to the world the prestige of our army and state,” Kim said.

Pyongyang has provided significant support for Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine, sending thousands of shipping containers of munitions and deploying 15,000 troops to assist Russian forces in the Kursk region, according to Seoul’s National Intelligence Service.

In exchange, experts assess that Russia is transferring advanced military technology to Pyongyang, including assistance with space launch vehicles, reconnaissance satellites and air defense systems.

On Friday, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea warned of the expanding threat posed by North Korea as it deepens military cooperation with Russia.

“Russian-DPRK collaboration is real — it is not a quid pro quo relationship,” Gen. Xavier Brunson said during a webinar.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

“There are things we know are happening right now that give me pause as I look at what might face us down the road, whether that be training, or techniques and procedures they’re learning from the front,” Brunson said.

The ruling party’s Ninth Congress, expected in early 2026, is widely expected to outline a new five-year economic plan and recalibrate Pyongyang’s military and foreign policy priorities.

Analysts say that the event may also cement a hard-line posture toward South Korea. In 2024, North Korea officially designated the South as a “hostile state,” according to state media, while Kim publicly rejected the long-held goal of reunification.

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress clashed Thursday over President Trump’s use of the National Guard in American cities, with Republicans saying the deployments were needed to fight lawlessness while Democrats called his move an extraordinary abuse of military power that violated states’ rights.

Top military officials faced questioning over the deployments for the first time at the hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. They were pressed by Democrats over the legality of sending in troops, which in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors, while Trump’s Republican allies offered a robust defense of the policy.

It was the highest level of scrutiny, outside a courtroom, of Trump’s use of the National Guard in U.S. cities since the deployments began and came a day after the president faced another legal setback over efforts to send troops to support federal law enforcement, protect federal facilities and combat crime.

“In recent years, violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” said Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee chairman. The deployments, he said, are “not only appropriate, but essential.”

Democrats argued they are illegal and contrary to historic prohibitions about the use of military force on U.S. soil.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., had pushed for the hearing, saying domestic deployments traditionally have involved responding to major floods and tornadoes, not assisting immigration agents who are detaining people in aggressive raids.

“Trump is forcing our military men and women to make a horrible choice: uphold their loyalty to the Constitution and protect peaceful protesters, or execute questionable orders from the president,” said Duckworth, a combat veteran who served in the Illinois National Guard.

Military leaders point to training

During questioning, military leaders highlighted the duties that National Guard units have carried out. Troops are trained in community policing, they said, and are prohibited from using force unless in self-defense.

Since the deployments began, only one civilian — in California — has been detained by National Guard personnel, according to Air Force Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of U.S. troops in North America. Guillot said the troops are trained to de-escalate tense interactions with people, but do not receive any specific training on mental health episodes.

“They can very quickly be trained to conduct any mission that we task of them,” Guillot said.

Republicans and Democrats see the deployments much differently

In one exchange, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, noted how former Defense Secretary Mark Esper alleged that Trump inquired about shooting protesters during the George Floyd demonstrations. She asked whether a presidential order to shoot protesters would be lawful.

Charles L. Young III, principal deputy general counsel at the Defense Department, said he was unaware of Trump’s previous comments and that “orders to that effect would depend on the circumstances.”

“We have a president who doesn’t think the rule of law applies to him,” Hirono said in response.

Republicans countered that Trump was within his rights — and his duty — to send in the troops.

Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana, a former Navy SEAL officer, argued during the hearing that transnational crimes present enough of a risk to national security to justify military action, including on U.S. soil.

Sheehy claimed there are foreign powers “actively attacking this country, using illegal immigration, using transnational crime, using drugs to do so.”

Senators also offered their sympathies after two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington were shot just blocks from the White House in what the city’s mayor described as a targeted attack. Spc. Sarah Beckstrom died a day after the Nov. 26 shooting, and her funeral took place Tuesday. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe is hospitalized in Washington.

Hearing follows court setback for Trump

A federal judge in California on Wednesday ruled that the administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials, but also put the decision on hold until Monday. The White House said it plans to appeal.

Trump called up more than 4,000 California National Guard troops in June without Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval to further the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

The move was the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor and marked a significant escalation in the administration’s efforts to carry out its mass deportation policy. The troops were stationed outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where protesters gathered and were later sent on the streets to protect immigration officers as they made arrests.

Trump also had announced National Guard members would be sent to Illinois, Oregon, Louisiana and Tennessee. Other judges have blocked or limited the deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, while Guard members have not yet been sent to New Orleans.

Klepper, Finley and Groves write for the Associated Press. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.