Overview

National Guard Deployed to U.S. Cities

During his second presidency, Trump ordered deployments of National Guard troops to select U.S. cities in 2025, with certain deployments continuing into 2026, citing crackdowns on protests, civil unrest, crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration. Cities affected included Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Minneapolis, Chicago, and New Orleans.

The first and most dramatic episode began in Los Angeles. Raids carried out in downtown Los Angeles by federal agents became a flashpoint for days of protests in America's second-largest city. The Trump administration announced it was deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to large-scale protests that erupted following dozens of arrests in citywide ICE operations. Trump ordered the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops to manage the unrest. In response to California's legal challenge, Trump deployed 700 Marines and an additional 2,000 National Guard members to the city.

The president used Title 10 authority to order the deployment of troops. His memorandum authorizing the deployment cited 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which permits the president to call federalized troops into service in situations of invasion, rebellion, or when regular forces are insufficient to execute the law. Crucially, Trump mobilized National Guard troops from California by bypassing California Governor Gavin Newsom. By the end of July, most of the federalized troops had demobilized or started the process of departing Los Angeles.

The pattern then shifted to Washington, D.C., where the federal government's authority is structurally different from that in states. When National Guard troops were deployed there in August 2025, Trump promised they would fight crime and make the streets safe again. Trump announced the federal takeover on August 11 with the goal of fighting crime and ramping up immigration arrests, sending more than 2,200 National Guard troops who carry firearms, along with hundreds of federal agents. Because Washington is a congressionally established federal district, Trump has much greater influence over the police and D.C. governance than he does in any state. A mission that seemed temporary has since been extended through January 2029.

The rollout continued through fall 2025. Presidential authorizations were issued to expand to Memphis, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, in September 2025, with federal forces arriving in Memphis in October 2025. On October 5, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued an order federalizing 400 members of the Texas National Guard, who were transferred to Oregon, Illinois, and possibly other states. Upwards of 1,700 National Guard soldiers were ultimately sent to 19 U.S. states to help the Department of Homeland Security tackle immigration enforcement and crime.

Significance and Impact

The actions targeted Democratic Party-led cities and sparked significant controversy, with critics labeling them as abuses of power and potential violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The deployments coincided with increased immigration raids, which in effect blurred the lines between traditional law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and the role of the National Guard.

Trump deployed the National Guard in Democratic-led cities — often over the objections of state and local leaders — claiming troops were needed to control crime and lawlessness, although data showed that violent crime in many of those places had decreased in recent years. At the time of his Washington, D.C., announcement, violent crime had decreased 26 percent compared to the previous year, according to D.C. police data.

While popular in some areas, Trump's deployments were met with fierce resistance in jurisdictions with "sanctuary" laws shielding immigrants from federal authorities, and in some particularly controversial instances, the president went around Democratic governors by federalizing the National Guard or deploying troops from friendly states to blue cities. The financial scale of the program was substantial. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting that the deployments to cities had cost $340 million as of late 2025, and the D.C. deployment alone has carried an even heavier price tag. As of early August 2026, more than 4,600 military personnel from D.C. and 24 states and territories were still deployed in the nation's capital alongside federal law enforcement officers.

The ideological architecture behind the deployments had roots in pre-election conservative planning. According to NPR, analysts noted that "there is this idea in Project 2025, and among the authors, that the military is just an underused resource for policing immigration," with illegal immigration framed as a national security problem. Using the National Guard for immigration enforcement is an idea that Stephen Miller had discussed publicly in the years before the administration took office.

Reactions and Debate

State and local officials in Democratic jurisdictions reacted with immediate and sustained opposition. Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines over the objections of local and state leaders set off a political confrontation between Trump and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Governor Gavin Newsom, with the president publicly calling them "incompetent" and the mayor and governor countering that Trump was abusing the power of the Oval Office. Mayor Bass criticized the deployment as "completely unnecessary," warning it risked escalating tensions. Governor Newsom formally requested that the Trump administration rescind what he called its "unlawful deployment" of National Guard troops.

Legal challenges multiplied rapidly. On June 9, 2025, California filed a lawsuit against the administration, claiming the deployment was an illegal and unconstitutional incursion on state authority. Legal experts warned that the deployment was illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits active-duty military from conducting law enforcement activities unless expressly authorized by another law. Illinois and Chicago filed their lawsuit hours after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked Trump's administration from sending any National Guard troops to police Portland. Chicago's lawsuit was described as the fourth legal action targeting Trump's use of soldiers to police U.S. cities, suppress protests, and bolster immigration enforcement.

Two dozen states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed court filings in support of the legal challenges by California and Oregon, while twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration. Federal courts were not uniformly receptive to the administration's arguments. In Chicago, District Judge April Perry granted a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking Trump's attempt to send National Guard troops into Illinois, ruling that "there has been no credible evidence that there has been rebellion in the state of Illinois." Trial testimony also revealed that the federal officers assigned to guard an ICE facility had not been consulted and did not request the assistance of National Guard units.

The Chicago case ultimately reached the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked Trump's National Guard deployment in Chicago. In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said he found it "puzzling" that the majority thought the Posse Comitatus Act was so relevant, arguing the president could use the military for a "range of domestic purposes." Alito warned of broader implications for Trump's attempts to deploy the National Guard in other cities, noting that the president had also been met with legal pushback in California and Portland, though the Chicago case was furthest along in the court system.

In Washington, D.C., the human impact was palpable in immigrant neighborhoods. Immigrants and immigration advocates told NBC News that the federal takeover of the nation's capital left vibrant communities and businesses "deserted," with people afraid to go grocery shopping, show up to work, or go about their daily lives. Residents and local officials viewed the operation as an unacceptable attempt by the federal government to restrict the heavily Democratic city's autonomy.

Outlook

The legal battles spawned by the deployments remain the most consequential unresolved thread. National Guard deployments to some cities have been blocked by courts, and a lawsuit challenging the D.C. deployment is pending. Some deployments — like in Chicago and Portland — have been blocked by courts and are making their way through a federal appeals process, while others, including in Washington, D.C., and Memphis, are ongoing. The Supreme Court's intervention in the Chicago case has set a significant precedent, but the precise outer limits of presidential authority under Title 10 remain contested, and litigation in multiple circuits is likely to produce further rulings.

A year after Trump announced the crime emergency in Washington, D.C., the mission has been extended through January 2029. City council member Brianne K. Nadeau reflected the frustration of many residents: "The fact that we still have the National Guard walking our streets a year later with no end in sight is really demoralizing." The Washington case is distinct from other cities because of the district's unique constitutional status, making a legal rollback there considerably harder to achieve.

More broadly, the deployments have established a template that the administration has signaled it may apply to additional cities. In 2025, Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, the Chicago area, Memphis, and New Orleans, and the administration has openly discussed extending the model further. Whether future deployments can survive judicial scrutiny — particularly after the Supreme Court's intervention in the Chicago case — will depend heavily on how appellate courts interpret the statutory prerequisites of Title 10 and the scope of the Posse Comitatus Act. For the states, the central question is whether federalism's traditional limits on presidential domestic military power can be meaningfully enforced when the administration is willing to draw troops from cooperating states rather than relying on the guards of unwilling ones.