CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois leaders went to court Monday to stop President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops to Chicago, escalating a clash between Democratic-led states and the Republican administration during an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the nation’s third-largest city.
The legal challenge came hours after a judge blocked the Guard's deployment in Portland, Oregon.
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Police and federal officers throw gas canisters to disperse protesters near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore. on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A protester is doused with milk, water, and saline after tear gas in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, after protesters learned that U.S. Border Patrol shot a woman Saturday morning on Chicago's Southwest Side. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
Police and Federal officers stand guard an area by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore. on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Federal officers hold down a protester in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, after protesters learned that U.S. Border Patrol shot a woman Saturday morning on Chicago's Southwest Side. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
The lawsuit in Chicago also raised the stakes after a violent weekend: Authorities said a woman was shot by a federal agent when Border Patrol vehicles were boxed in and struck by other vehicles. The city's police superintendent rejected suggestions that his officers were on the government's side in volatile situations like that one.
The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid its crackdown on illegal immigration. Officials in Illinois and Oregon say military intervention isn’t needed and that federal involvement is inflaming the situation.
The lawsuit alleges that “these advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said a court hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
“Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,” Pritzker, a Democrat, said.
Pritzker said some 300 of the state’s guard troops were to be federalized and deployed to Chicago, along with 400 others from Texas.
Pritzker said the potential deployment amounted to “Trump’s invasion,” and he called on Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to block it. Abbott pushed back and said the crackdown was needed to protect federal workers who are in the city as part of the president’s increased immigration enforcement.
Abbott posted a picture on the social platform X on Monday night of Texas National Guard members boarding a plane, but didn't specify where they were going.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed in a weekend statement that Trump authorized using Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.
The sight of armed Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous landmarks amplified concerns from Chicagoans already uneasy after an immigration crackdown that began last month. Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday that he signed an executive order barring federal immigration agents and others from using city-owned property, such as parking lots, garages and vacant lots, as staging areas for enforcement operations.
Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters Friday near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview. Mayor Katrina Thompson, citing safety and other factors, said she was limiting protests to 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The ACLU of Illinois on Monday sued Trump, Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Border Patrol and national and local leaders at several agencies, accusing them of unleashing a campaign of violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters and journalists during weeks of demonstrations outside that facility. The lawsuit alleges that federal agents used “indiscriminate” and “violent force,” including tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and flash grenades, interfering with First Amendment rights.
DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in response to the lawsuit that “the First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting."
Elsewhere, DHS acknowledged that agents shot a woman Saturday on Chicago's southwest side. The department said it happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area were “rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said it's reasonable for agents to use force if they believe they're being ambushed. He noted officers were redeployed from other parts of the city to assist the agents and that 27 were affected by tear gas.
“We cannot become a society where we just decide to take everything in our own hands and start to commit crimes against law enforcement,” Snelling said.
He said it’s difficult to “toe the line” between not helping federal immigration agents and maintaining public safety.
In Portland, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut on Sunday granted a temporary restraining order sought by Oregon and California barring the deployment of Guard troops to Oregon from any state and the District of Columbia.
Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, seemed incredulous that the president moved to send National Guard troops to Oregon from neighboring California and then from Texas on Sunday, just hours after she had ruled against it the first time.
“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said. “Why is this appropriate?”
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt criticized the decision and said the president was using his authority as commander in chief.
Portland’s ICE facility has been the site of nightly protests for months, peaking in June when Portland police declared a riot, with smaller clashes occurring since then.
In recent weeks, the nightly protests typically drew a couple dozen people — until Trump ordered the National Guard. Over the weekend, larger crowds gathered outside the facility and federal agents fired tear gas. Portland police made multiple arrests.
Since June, federal agents have charged 30 people with federal crimes related to the protests at the ICE building, including assaulting federal officers, failure to comply and depredation of government property, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Oregon said Monday.
Most violent crime around the U.S. has declined in recent years, including in Portland, where homicides from January through June decreased by 51% to 17 this year compared to the same period in 2024, data shows.
Since starting his second term, Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
A federal judge in September said the administration “willfully” broke federal law by deploying guard troops to Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.
Associated Press reporters Sophia Tareen in Chicago, Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
Police and federal officers throw gas canisters to disperse protesters near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore. on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
A protester is doused with milk, water, and saline after tear gas in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, after protesters learned that U.S. Border Patrol shot a woman Saturday morning on Chicago's Southwest Side. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
Police and Federal officers stand guard an area by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore. on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
Federal officers hold down a protester in the Brighton Park neighborhood of Chicago, on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, after protesters learned that U.S. Border Patrol shot a woman Saturday morning on Chicago's Southwest Side. (Anthony Vazquez/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration commissioner's effort to drastically shorten the review of drugs favored by President Donald Trump's administration is causing alarm across the agency, stoking worries that the plan may run afoul of legal, ethical and scientific standards long used to vet the safety and effectiveness of new medicines.
Marty Makary's program is causing new anxiety and confusion among staff already rocked by layoffs, buyouts and leadership upheavals, according to seven current or recently departed staffers. The people spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential agency matters.
At the highest levels of the FDA, questions remain about which officials have the legal authority to sign off on drugs cleared under the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, which promises approval in as little as one month for medicines that support “U.S. national interests.”
Traditionally, approval decisions have nearly always been handled by FDA review scientists and their immediate supervisors, not the agency’s political appointees and senior leaders.
But drug reviewers say they've received little information about the new program's workings. And some staffers working on a highly anticipated anti-obesity pill were recently told they can skip certain regulatory steps to meet top officials' aggressive deadlines.
Outside experts point out that FDA drug reviews — which range from six to 10 months — are already the fastest in the world.
“The concept of doing a review in one to two months just does not have scientific precedent,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor at Harvard Medical School. “FDA cannot do the same detailed review that it does of a regular application in one to two months, and it doesn’t have the resources to do it.”
On Thursday Reuters reported that FDA officials have delayed the review of two drugs in the program, in part due to safety concerns, including the death of a patient taking one of the medications.
Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said the voucher program prioritizes “gold standard scientific review” and aims to deliver “meaningful and effective treatments and cures."
The program remains popular at the White House, where pricing concessions announced by the Republican president have repeatedly been accompanied by FDA vouchers for drugmakers that agree to cut their prices.
For instance, when the White House announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would reduce prices on their popular obesity drugs, FDA staffers had to scramble to vet new vouchers for both companies in time for Trump's news conference, according to multiple people involved in the process.
That’s sparked widespread concern that FDA drug reviews — long pegged to objective standards and procedures — have become open to political interference.
“It’s extraordinary to have such an opaque application process, one that is obviously susceptible to politicization,” said Paul Kim, a former FDA attorney who now works with pharmaceutical clients.
Many of the concerns around the program stem from the fact that it hasn't been laid out in federal rules and regulations.
The FDA already has more than a half-dozen programs intended to speed up or streamline reviews for promising drugs — all approved by Congress, with regulations written by agency staff.
In contrast, information about the voucher program is mostly confined to an agency website. Drugmakers can apply by submitting a 350-word “statement of interest.”
Increasingly, agency leaders such as Dr. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top medical officer and vaccine center director, have been contacting drugmakers directly about awarding vouchers. That’s created quandaries for FDA staffers on even basic questions, such as how to formally award a voucher to a company that didn’t request one.
Nixon, the HHS spokesman, said that voucher submissions are evaluated by “a senior, multidisciplinary review committee,” led by Prasad.
Questions about the legality of the program led the FDA’s then-drug director, Dr. George Tidmarsh, to decline to sign off on approvals under the pathway, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Tidmarsh resigned from the agency in November after a lawsuit challenging his conduct on issues unrelated to the voucher program.
After his departure, Sara Brenner, the FDA’s principal deputy commissioner, was set to have the power to decide, but she also declined the role after looking further into the legal implications, according to the people. Currently the agency’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr. Mallika Mundkur, who works under Prasad, is taking on the responsibility.
Giving final approval to a drug carries significant legal risks, essentially certifying that the medicine meets FDA standards for safety and effectiveness. If unexpected safety problems later emerge, both the agency and individual staffers could be pulled into investigations or lawsuits.
Traditionally, approval comes from FDA drug office directors, made in consultation with a team of reviewers. Under the voucher program, approval comes through a committee vote by senior agency leaders led by Prasad, according to multiple people familiar with the process. Staff reviewers don't get a vote.
“It is a complete reversal from the normal review process, which is traditionally led by the scientists who are the ones immersed in the data,” said Kesselheim, who is a lawyer and a medical researcher.
Not everyone sees problems with the program. Dan Troy, the FDA’s top lawyer under President George W. Bush, a Republican, says federal law gives the commissioner broad discretion to reorganize the handling of drug reviews.
Still, he says, the voucher program, like many of Makary’s initiatives, may be short-lived because it isn't codified.
“If you live by the press release then you die by the press release,” Troy said. “Anything that they’re doing now could be wiped out in a moment by the next administration.”
Initially framed as a pilot program of no more than five drugs, it has expanded to 18 vouchers awarded, with more under consideration. That puts extra pressure on the agency’s drug center, where 20% of the staff has left through retirements, buyouts or resignations over the past year.
When Makary unveiled the program in October there were immediate concerns about the unprecedented power he would have in deciding which companies benefit.
Makary then said that nominations for drugs would come from career staffers. Indeed, some of the early drugs were recommended by FDA reviewers, according to two people familiar with the process. They said FDA staffers deliberately selected drugs that could be vetted quickly.
But, increasingly, selection decisions are led by Prasad or other senior officials, sometimes unbeknownst to FDA staff, according to three people. In one case, FDA reviewers learned from GlaxoSmithKline representatives that Prasad had contacted the company about a voucher.
Access to Makary is limited because he does not use a government email account to do business, according to people familiar with the matter, breaking with longstanding precedent.
Once a voucher is awarded, some drugmakers have their own interpretation of the review timeline — creating further confusion and anxiety among staff.
Two people involved in the ongoing review of Eli Lilly's anti-obesity pill said company executives initially told the FDA they expected the drug approved within two months.
The timeline alarmed FDA reviewers because it did not include the agency's standard 60-day prefiling period, when staffers check the application to ensure it isn’t missing essential information. That 60-day window has been in place for more than 30 years.
Lilly pushed for a quicker filing turnaround, demanding one week. Eventually the agency and the company agreed to a two-week period.
Nixon declined to comment on the specifics of Lilly's review but said FDA reviewers can “adjust timelines as needed.”
Staffers were pushed to keep the application moving forward, even though key pieces of data about the drug's chemistry appeared to be missing, according to one person involved in the process. When reviewers raised concerns about some of the gaps during an internal meeting, the person said, they were told by a senior official: “If the science is sound then you can overlook the regulations.”
Former reviewers and outside experts say that approach is the opposite of how FDA reviews should work: By following the regulations, staffers scientifically confirm the safety and effectiveness of drugs.
Skipping review steps could also carry risks for drugmakers if future FDA leaders decide a drug wasn’t properly vetted. Like other experts, Kesselheim says the program may not last beyond the current administration.
“They are fundamentally changing the application of the standards, but the underlying law remains what it is,” he said. “The hope is that one day we will return to these scientifically sound, legally sound principles.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - The Food and Drug Administration seal is seen at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium in Washington, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
