Why Trump’s Use Of Military In US Is So Controversial
Kevin DuPresident Donald Trump has repeatedly deployed the US military for domestic assignments. In June, he summoned the Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles — over the objections of local leaders — to subdue protests against his administration’s mass arrests of migrants. And in August, Trump called up the Guard to combat violent street crime in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly deployed the US military for domestic assignments. In June, he summoned the Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles — over the objections of local leaders — to subdue protests against his administration’s mass arrests of migrants. And in August, Trump called up the Guard to combat violent street crime in Washington, DC.
The president has repeatedly suggested he will extend the campaign to other cities. “We’re going to Memphis,” Trump said on Sept. 12, adding that he believes the city is “deeply troubled.” Trump has also discussed plans to deploy troops to Chicago and New York City.
Trump also issued an executive order directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to create “National Guard units around the country specifically trained and equipped to deal with public order issues,” as the president said at a press conference.
Trump’s actions mark a sharp departure from his predecessors. Historically, US presidents have made sparing use of the armed forces for missions within the nation’s borders, a legacy of resistance to the presence of British soldiers in the colonies in the 1700s. Trump’s mobilization of the military domestically has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats as an authoritarian abuse of power.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, his defense secretary, James Mattis, authorized the deployment of up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border to support federal agents with surveillance and logistics for immigration enforcement.
In 2020, more than 30 state governors used National Guard troops to curb protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Two years later, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper testified to a House committee that he and others had needed to persuade Trump not to deploy active-duty troops — those serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — in US cities as well. At the time, Trump felt the widespread unrest made the US look weak, Esper told the committee.
As Trump campaigned for a second term, he made clear he wanted to be more aggressive in using the military. At an event in Iowa in 2023 he labeled several big cities “crime dens” and said he had previously been held back from sending in the military.
Following up on his vow to target an estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally, Trump in January ordered a new deployment of Army soldiers and Marines to the border to help block migrants from crossing without authorization. The Defense Department said at least four military planes would be used to help carry out deportations of about 5,000 detained migrants from El Paso and San Diego. As of early July, about 8,500 military personnel were stationed at the border.
In June, the president sent 4,000 National Guard troops and about 700 US Marines to Los Angeles for 60 days amid protests against immigration raids in the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area. In July, after protest activity faded, most of the troops were recalled.
In early August, Trump announced he would take federal control of Washington, DC’s police department and deploy National Guard troops there, escalating his push to exert power over the nation’s capital. On Aug. 12, troops began arriving in the city. As of Aug. 26, about 2,200 National Guard soldiers had been deployed to Washington.
On Aug. 22, The Pentagon said that National Guard troops deployed to Washington will begin carrying firearms. The order was a reversal for the Army, which had said on Aug. 14 that weapons would be available but “remain in the armory.”
The law strictly limits the federal deployment of troops within US borders.
The US Constitution provides that neither the president nor Congress can use the armed forces to carry out their policy agenda without consent from the other branch. Domestic deployment of active-duty military personnel has historically been viewed as an option of last resort.
The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, along with amendments and supporting regulations, generally bars the use of the active-duty US military from carrying out domestic law enforcement. Important exceptions to the 1878 law are contained in the 1807 Insurrection Act and its modern iterations, which allow the president, without congressional approval, to employ the military for domestic use in certain extreme circumstances. The Insurrection Act has been used very rarely to deploy troops under federal control domestically without a request from a state government, and modern examples mostly date from the Civil Rights era.
Occasionally, a president has deployed National Guard troops to respond to civil unrest and rioting, but almost always at the request of a state’s governor. President Lyndon Johnson, for example, sent National Guard soldiers under federal control to Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore to help quell race riots in the late 1960s after governors asked for help. Likewise, President George H.W. Bush activated the California National Guard in 1992 at the request of Governor Pete Wilson and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley when rioting broke out in the city following a jury’s acquittal of police officers charged with severely beating a Black man, Rodney King, after a high-speed car chase.
The last time a president activated a state’s National Guard without a request from the governor was in 1965, when Johnson used the guard to protect civil rights demonstrators in Alabama after the governor refused to do so.
In recent decades, both Republican and Democratic presidents, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have relied on the National Guard and active-duty military members to reinforce US Customs and Border Protection with tasks including engineering, aviation and logistical support. But Trump has gone further by creating military zones along the US-Mexico border where troops can detain migrants without running afoul of restrictions on their involvement in domestic law enforcement.
Trump has repeatedly signaled he might invoke the Insurrection Act, though he has not done so. Instead, the Trump administration has justified deployments by arguing that local and state officials have failed to restore order in their jurisdictions. In his takeover of policing in the District of Columbia, Trump declared a public safety emergency under a provision of DC’s Home Rule Act that allows him to temporarily assume control of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department.
In Trump’s announcement of the DC deployment, he painted a nightmarish picture of a Washington that’s been “overtaken” by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth.” That was at odds with a finding from the Justice Department in January that violent crime in the capital reached a 30-year low in 2024.
To unilaterally dispatch the California National Guard to Los Angeles, Trump cited a provision of Title 10 of the US Code that permits the president to deploy the guard in cases of invasion by a foreign nation, a rebellion, or danger of a rebellion. Under this statute, troops are still not permitted to do civilian law enforcement.
On June 7, the president issued a proclamation giving Hegseth the authority to direct troops to take “reasonably necessary” actions to protect immigration agents and other federal workers and federal property. It also permits him to use members of the regular armed forces “as necessary to augment and support the protection of federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.”
On June 9, California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit challenging the Los Angeles deployment. Following a three-day trial in August, US District Judge Charles Breyer ruled on Sep. 2 that Trump’s actions “willfully” violated the Posse Comitatus Act.
Breyer rejected the administration’s argument that concern about the ability of federal employees to do their jobs without interruption was an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, saying that such an exception “would be limitless in principle.”
In Los Angeles, the president’s move to stop what he called “migrant riots” was condemned as inflammatory and unnecessary by local officials, including Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom, who would normally be responsible for requesting such a mobilization.
DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued Trump on Aug. 15, alleging the president exceeded his authority in taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to the nation’s capital. At a judge’s urging, US Attorney General Pam Bondi agreed to let DC police chief Pamela Smith remain in charge of her department, while directing DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to assist with federal immigration enforcement and enforce laws barring homeless people from occupying public spaces.
Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson condemned Trump’s warnings that he may deploy troops to Chicago and other cities.
“After using Los Angeles and Washington, DC as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities,” Pritzker said. “Trump’s goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts — all to create a justification to further abuse his power.”
