Washington (TDI): US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration is withdrawing National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, marking a retreat from a controversial domestic deployment that drew sharp legal and political opposition.
Trump, writing on his social media platform, framed the decision as a response to lower crime rates in those cities, asserting the Guard’s presence had helped reduce violence.
However, he signaled that federal forces could return “in a much different and stronger form” if crime begins to rise again.
However, despite these assertions, the National Guard was legally restricted from carrying out direct policing duties, as US law prohibits military forces from engaging in routine law enforcement.
The Trump administration also did not invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, a law that permits a president to deploy troops domestically only under exceptional circumstances, such as rebellion or situations where civilian authorities are unable to enforce federal law.
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Trump’s announcement came just ahead of a key legal setback, as a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that his administration must return hundreds of California National Guard troops to the authority of Governor Gavin Newsom.
Earlier, on December 23rd, the US Supreme Court also blocked Trump’s bid to deploy National Guard forces in Illinois, dealing a significant blow to the legal justification behind similar deployments in other states.
In its ruling, the court stressed that a president’s power to place National Guard units under federal control likely applies only in exceptional circumstances, noting that the government had failed, at this stage, to demonstrate a clear legal basis for allowing the military to enforce laws in Illinois.
Despite Trump’s claims, many of the Guard units had already begun leaving those cities or were never actively deployed on the streets due to legal restrictions.
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Officials in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland said the decline in crime was largely due to the work of local police and community-based safety initiatives, rather than the deployment of National Guard.
Local leaders and residents from Democratic-led cities and state governments welcomed the development, saying it upheld constitutional limits on federal military involvement in domestic law enforcement.
California Governor Gavin Newsom described the legal setbacks to the deployments as a victory for the rule of law.
Trump’s broader use of the National Guard this year, which also included deployments in other cities, has been one of the most contentious elements of his second-term agenda.
Minahil Khurshid holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from CIPS, NUST. She has a strong interest in current affairs, geopolitics, and policy analysis.
