Trump says ‘removing’ National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland

In a significant policy change, US President Donald Trump announced that he would stop deploying federal troops to several Democratic-controlled cities.

Trump’s plans to send National Guard members to Chicago, Illinois, Los Angeles, California, and Portland, Oregon are all set to suffer legal difficulties, according to the announcement on Wednesday.

Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social that he is “removing” the National Guard from those cities despite the fact that lower courts had already limited their deployment.

Despite the fact that these great Patriots have greatly reduced CRIME in those cities, and only by that fact, he said, “We are removing the National Guard from those cities.”

The National Guard is prohibited from participating directly in law enforcement, which is still prohibited by US law. Trump had not used the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows presidents to deploy troops domestically when “unlawful obstructions, combinations, assemblages, or rebellion” against the federal government render it “impracticable to enforce” US law in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.

Due to this, immigration enforcement was largely tasked with providing support services to troops deployed in or around Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago.

At the time of Trump’s announcement, there were 200 National Guard members who were still under federal control in Portland as well as Los Angeles and Chicago.

Trump has claimed repeatedly that major US cities have been hit by repeated overlapping crime and immigration crises since deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles in response to protests against mass immigration enforcement sweeps.

Trump has been accused of engaging in risky political theater to harm opponents by critics.

Trump’s statement made no mention of the state’s Republican governor’s express request to have the National Guard deploy in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Washington, DC, a federal territory.

legal lapses

A Supreme Court order last week upholding a lower court’s decision to prevent the president from sending the National Guard to Chicago is among the president’s latest legal setbacks.

National Guard troops are typically stationed at the governors’ offices, unlike federal military members, at their request. The National Guard can only be unilaterally mobilized by presidents when other federal agents are unable to break the law.

Trump’s defense of similar deployments across the country was severely hampered by the administration’s majority of Supreme Court justices’ rulings that he has not yet met that threshold.

As part of their appeal of a lower court’s decision, Department of Justice attorneys in California withdrew a request to keep state troops under federal control earlier on Wednesday. According to US District Judge Charles Breyer, the troops must be returned to state control.

The Democrat and leading Trump critic, California Governor Gavin Newsom, stated in a post on X that “Trump and his occult cabinet members’ acceptance means this illegal intimidation tactic will finally come to an end.”

A more significant court decision on the subject is “looking forward” to Newsom and his staff.

Trump, for his part, stated in his Truth Social post that he would not be hesitant to send troops back.