Where things stand with Trump’s National Guard deployments : NPR

Armed members of the Patrol of the National Guard on the National Mall in Washington, DC, August 26, 2025.

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Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration has deployed or threatened to deploy national guard troops in more than half a dozen American cities which, according to crime.

The announcements led to demonstrations, prosecution and, in some cases, to open arms.

With as many cities, agencies and legal challenges in the mixture, we decompose where everything is with these deployments.

What cities are targeted?

President Trump sent thousands of national guard troops to Los Angeles in June and Washington, DC in August.

It was the start of a series of maneuvers from the Trump administration to deploy troops in various American cities that continued in September. On Tuesday, the prosecutor General Pam Bondi posted on social networks that a federal working group to fight crime was operational in Memphis, Tennessee, but she did not say if she understood troops of the National Guard.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said that Trump administration wanted to deploy 100 soldiers in Chicago and that the Oregon National Guard said it was trying to comply with Trump’s call for 200 soldiers in Portland, Oregon Broadcasting public station reported.

In Louisiana, Governor Jeff Landry asked up to 1,000 soldiers to help “high crime rates” in cities like New Orleans, Shreveport and Baton Rouge. And the governor of Missouri, Mike Kehoe, authorized his National Guard of State to help “administrative, office and logistics tasks” in immigration and customs treatment facilities after a request from the Ministry of Homeland Security.

Trump also appointed cities like Baltimore, where Maryland Wes Moore governor pushed the idea of ​​troops in the streets and announced more state resources to fight crime.

Are these deployments legal?

There are two laws that arise several times when this question is raised.

The rule of the House law gives the president the command of Washington, the National Guard of DC, where the troops remain.

The California National Guard is positioned at Federal Building, June 10, 2025, in downtown Los Angeles.

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Eric Thayer / AP

But this is not the case in other states. And the posse Comitatus Act prohibits soldiers from engaging in the application of national laws without the authorization of the congress. And the American district judge Charles R. Breyer decided that the deployment of troops in Los Angeles violates this law, although the decision only applies in California.

Oregon and Portland are looking for a ban on deployment prohibition, saying Trump has exceeded his legal authority, OPB reported.

Deployments in states managed by Republicans, however, can be more legal, according to experts.

“If the governor wants to invite troops of other states – it may or may not be useless – but legally speaking, it is not necessarily problematic, as long as they respect the constitutional rights of people,” explains Rosa Brooks, a law professor from the University of Georgetown at NPR.

Is there a development model?

A clear model is the partisan fracture. Democratic governors such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Pritzker and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek opposed deployments.

Newsom previously said to the order of NPR Trump to send navies alongside the troops of the National Guard in its state was “illegal” and “immoral”. And Pritzker on X called Trump to “stop using military troops and ice to invade and disturb American cities”.

Republican governors, on the other hand, welcome interventions.

And then there is a broader diagram which, according to legal experts, is the normalization of troops in armed uniforms in the American streets which questions long history in the United States to limit the role of the army at the national level.

“It continues to accustom Americans to the idea that it is a normal thing, and that when you go to your daily belongings, you should just get used to it, and that’s how it will be. And is it intimidating? Is it scary for most ordinary people? It is for many people,” said Brooks.