Trump Administration Withdraws National Guard Troops from U.S. Cities

What Happened?

The Trump Administration announced it is withdrawing National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland this week. The move comes after a Supreme Court ruling that left in place a lower court decision that found the Trump Administration had failed to prove a threat to government operations existed that would necessitate the deployment of guard troops. 

An additional federal appellate court ruling ordered the Trump Administration to return control of federalized guard troops to state governors. The rulings and the withdrawal will bring to an end one of the largest and longest deployments of federalized guard troops in U.S. history.

Why it Matters

The Trump Administration had claimed there were security threats of such a severe nature as to interfere with government operations, and that in turn required the deployment of federalized guard troops. But several federal courts ruled that the administration had failed to prove those claims, and the Supreme Court agreed. While President Trump posted on social media the reason for the withdrawal was a drop in crime, it's obvious the court rulings left him with no other choice. 

Under federal law and the U.S. Constitution, the president can federalize state guard troops if certain conditions are met, including a rebellion or a security threat that causes government operations to be disrupted. Ordinary crime, even if it is at high levels, does not meet the legal threshold for the president to federalize National Guard troops. Many major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, do have their share of crime, but it’s not clear the guard troops had much of an impact on it.

Data provided by the cities and cited by the federal government indicated a small decrease in crime in the precise areas where guard troops were located, but the majority of neighborhoods in those cities were unaffected. For example, the city of Los Angeles has over nine thousand police officers, along with another nine thousand in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office. With eighteen thousand armed police already in the city, it's easy to see why the three hundred National Guard troops there were not enough to make a significant difference. 

The withdrawal of National Guard troops is a political defeat for the Trump Administration, and the Supreme Court ruling against those deployments will make it difficult to conduct similar operations in the future. Guard troops remain in the District of Columbia, but D.C. is a unique situation owing to federal law governing its operation. 

How it Affects You

While President Trump said that guard forces could come back if crime goes up again, it is difficult to see how, since ordinary crime does not constitute a legal basis for federalizing National Guard troops, and now the Supreme Court has upheld that.