I have several blog posts in drafts, which are just copies of articles from different Chicago newspapers. Usually, there are not that many of them in my blog, but these are unusual times, and I want to keep them for history.

The one below is from lst weeks’ Sun Times:

Members of the military are required to follow constitutional orders and disobey unconstitutional orders. But two members from Illinois see gray areas in the deployment of forces in the Chicago area to assist immigration agents.

By  Bob Chiarito | For the Sun-TimesOct 12, 2025, 7:58pm CDT

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Hundreds of National Guard members sent to Illinois by the Trump administration remain in a holding pattern following a federal judge’s order last week barring them from being deployed onto the streets of Chicago.

As some 500 military troops wait in limbo for the courts to decide where and how they can be sent into duty among civilians, two active Illinois National Guard members and one who is retired spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times about what they would do in the event they were activated.

Active-duty members are normally prohibited from speaking to the news media, but Dylan Blaha and Demi Palecek, who are both running for political office, said their views on the subject are already publicly known.

The third person who spoke out, Joe Prehm, left the National Guard in 2018 after serving 10 years. He is not restricted from expressing his views.

Palecek, 34, who is running for state representative as a Democrat in the 13th District, is a staff sergeant in the Illinois National Guard and has been a guard member for 12 years.

She said if she were called up to protect agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement she would not comply.

“Absolutely, I’d refuse. There’s no way,” Palecek said, adding she is also encouraging others in the National Guard to follow suit.

“I want all members to say no,” Palecek said. “This is against what we signed up for. We’re here for humanitarian things, we’re here to help and protect the people, not to be used and weaponized against our own communities to terrorize them.”

The issue is personal because her mother is from Mexico, she said.

U.S. service members take an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. In addition, under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Manual for Courts-Martial, service members must obey lawful orders and disobey unlawful orders, according to a U.S. military website. Unlawful orders are those that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution, international human rights standards or the Geneva Conventions.

Blaha, a 32-year-old from the Champaign area who is a Democratic candidate in the 13th congressional District, has served in the Illinois National Guard for 11 years. He said refusing orders isn’t easy and may not be the ideal path to take.

“Just being told to go and stand in front of a federal building, I would recommend it’s better for these soldiers to stay there and follow what they can,” Blaha said. “If they do ever receive an order that seems like it crosses the line, then you stand up to it. But if you step aside, you might allow someone to take charge that will comply with everything.”

However, Blaha said the legality of an order is not always clear-cut.

“A soldier is obligated to disobey unlawful or illegal orders, but there’s a big gray area,” Blaha said. “You never find out what’s illegal or unlawful until after the fact, so a lot of it is a judgment call.”

Prehm, a 10-year veteran of the Illinois National Guard who ended his service seven years ago, agrees with Blaha.

“Maybe that’s why [President Donald Trump] sent Texas National Guard rather than Illinois, because with the Illinois Guard there may be a lot from Chicago,” Prehm said. “They may be less inclined to do something or help, while Texas has nothing to do with Chicago.”

Prehm, who was deployed to Kuwait and Iraq, said he would refuse to guard ICE agents if he were still in the National Guard.

“The National Guard should not be used to protect federal agents. That should be the job of other law enforcement,” Prehm said.

On Friday, Blaha and Palecek attended a protest near the ICE detention facility in Broadview.

Wearing sweatshirts in honor of journalists who have been killed in Gaza, they both said they were happy with the judge’s ruling.

“I’m glad that the judge found that they violated the 10th and 14th Amendment and the Posse Comitatus Act,” Blaha said.

“I think the biggest thing right now is that President Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. I really hope he doesn’t and that we keep winning in the courts.”

The Insurrection Act gives the president power to send the military to states to put down public unrest and to support law enforcement.

Palecek said she had questions related to the fact that National Guard members are not being paid but would receive back pay once the government shutdown ends.

“They’re not getting paid, so are they going to chill here? Then we’ll have to pay for them to just chill here. It’s weird.”