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A member of the National Guard arrives at the Guard\u2019s headquarters at the D.C. Armory on Tuesday, \u00a0Aug. 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump announced he is placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, and will deploy the National Guard to the District to assist in crime prevention in the nation\u2019s capital. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s move to deploy 800 National Guard members in the District of Columbia over claims that crime is plaguing the city \u2013 despite historic lows \u2013\u00a0 follows his use of the military in his administration\u2019s growing immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n
\u201c(D.C.\u2019s) out of control, but we\u2019re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border,\u201d Trump said at a Monday press conference where he was flanked by members of his Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He vowed to do the same in more cities governed by Democrats.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s return to the White House was led by a campaign promise of mass deportations, tying newly arrived immigrants at the southern border with high crime rates and the need to use troops to detain and remove those migrants.<\/p>\n
Since Inauguration Day, the president has sent thousands of National Guard members to be stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border and has militarized strips of land along the border, putting migrants into contact with military personnel.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s deployment of the California National Guard\u00a0in June<\/a> in response to unrest over immigration raids was seen as a test case for use of the state-based military forces. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wrote on X on Monday that Trump \u201cwas just getting warmed up in Los Angeles\u201d with that order.<\/p>\n \u201cHe will gaslight his way into militarizing any city he wants in America,\u201d Newsom said. \u201cThis is what dictators do.\u201d<\/p>\n Now the Trump administration is evaluating plans to establish a \u201cDomestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force\u201d composed of 600 National Guard members to remain on stand-by in order to be quickly deployed to any U.S. city undergoing a protest or other civil unrest within an hour,\u00a0according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.<\/a><\/p>\n The groups, who would be armed with riot gear and other weapons, would be split evenly between Alabama and Arizona, according to the Post.<\/p>\n The DOD proposal also calls for a rotation of service members from Army and Air Force National Guard units based in Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to the Post.<\/p>\n National Guard members are typically in reserve and are some of the first responders to natural disasters.<\/p>\n The Department of Defense and the National Guard did not respond to States Newsroom\u2019s request for comment about the \u201cQuick Reaction Force\u201d plans. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n At the Monday press conference, Trump specifically cited four cities that could see similar National Guard movements: Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland \u2013 all heavily Democratic cities led by Black mayors. Violent crime in all those cities has continued to trend downward, according to each city\u2019s police database.<\/p>\n Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, New York City and the entire state of California also all are on a new\u00a0\u201csanctuary jurisdiction\u201d list<\/a> issued by the Department of Justice on Aug. 5. They are identified as \u201chaving policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.\u201d<\/p>\n But, unlike the district, where the president has control over the National Guard,\u00a0state governors, under the law, have had control over their National Guard members.<\/p>\n Additionally, while Trump has seized control of the 3,400 officers in the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department for 29 days due to the district\u2019s Home Rule Act, experts don\u2019t see how that can legally be done with other local police departments.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they are doing in D.C. cannot be replicated outside of D.C. All of this is only possible because D.C. is not a state,\u201d said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center\u2019s Liberty and National Security Program. \u201cThere\u2019s no playbook for them to do what they seem to want to do outside of D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified Trump\u2019s statements about sending in National Guard members into cities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe president is speaking about what he\u2019d like to see take place in other cities across the country,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen the time comes we\u2019ll talk about that. Starting with our nation\u2019s capital is a great place to begin and it should serve as a model.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said he hoped other cities were \u201cwatching.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe they\u2019ll self clean up and maybe they\u2019ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n Nunn said that even if the president were to federalize a state\u2019s National Guard, those members would be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that allows the military to participate in local law enforcement,\u201d Nunn said.<\/p>\n A trial is underway this week challenging the president\u2019s move to federalize California National Guard members, in a suit filed by Newsom,\u00a0after an appeals court temporarily upheld Trump\u2019s move.<\/a><\/p>\n The president deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles after protests erupted against aggressive immigration actions by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducting raids in Home Depot parking lots.<\/p>\n But the legal issue before a San Francisco court is not if the president\u2019s actions were unlawful, but on the political question of who has authority over the National Guard.<\/p>\n Other governors in the states Trump mentioned as candidates for National Guard activation pushed back on the notion.<\/p>\n Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who served in the U.S. Army, said in a statement that the president\u2019s decision to call in the National Guard to the District of Columbia \u201clacks seriousness and is deeply dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the president could not send in the National Guard to Chicago.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The conflict between Trump and the Democrats comes at the same time Newsom has threatened to launch a redistricting of California\u2019s congressional districts in order to nullify Texas\u2019 attempt to redraw maps to add more Republican seats to the U.S. House.<\/p>\n And Pritzker is hosting in Illinois the Texas Democrats who left the state to prevent the state legislature from having a quorum after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session for redistricting.<\/p>\n Since taking office for his second term, the president has signed five executive orders that\u00a0lay out the use of military forces<\/a> within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n More funding also soon will be at hand for Trump\u2019s mass deportations.<\/a> The\u00a0massive tax and spending cut bill enacted in July has as its centerpiece $170 billion for the administration\u2019s immigration crackdown. It bolsters border security, increases immigration detention capacity and adds fees to legal pathways for immigration, among other things. Thousands more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are slated to be hired.<\/p>\n Some Republican governors have agreed to deploy their own National Guard members to aid the Trump administration in immigration enforcement, such as in\u00a0Iowa\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0Tennessee<\/a>. The secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, sent National Guard to the southern border in Texas when she was governor of South Dakota.<\/p>\n Nunn said that while it\u2019s not typically normal for states to use National Guard members for local policing there is some precedent, such as when New York had members stationed in the New York City subway.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is unprecedented is the federal government using military personnel for sort of crime prevention, for regular policing,\u201d Nunn said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A member of the National Guard arrives at the Guard\u2019s headquarters at the D.C. Armory on Tuesday, \u00a0Aug. 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump announced he is placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, and will deploy the National Guard to the District to assist in crime prevention in the nation\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Quick Reaction Force\u2019<\/h4>\n
Which cities are next?<\/h4>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>Los Angeles<\/h4>\n
Military forces<\/h4>\n