Over the course of the past few months, United States’ President Donald Trump has deployed national guard troops in two major cities struggling with crime. He deployed troops in Los Angeles in early June and most recently in Washington D.C. in early August. The Trump Administration has reportedly stated they plan to deploy 1,700 troops amongst 19 states in the near future, and some have raised concerns about the orders while some have praised the work of the president.
An article published by CBS news about the changes in criminal data since the deployment in D.C. reports, “a CBS News analysis of crime data shows violent crime is down in Washington by almost half when compared to the same 19 days in 2024. The analysis, reviewing every crime incident reported to the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department from Aug. 7 through Aug. 25, also shows violent crime is down in comparison to the five-year average for the same dates. Beyond violent crime, reported burglaries also are down 48% and car thefts have fallen 36%.”
On the other hand, over 2,500 miles west of D.C., the national guard presence in L.A. throughout early June sparked much more backlash and even legal involvement. Recently, Politico reported that a federal judge in Los Angeles officially ruled the Trump Administration’s use of the national guard in Los Angeles as illegal due to violating the limitations in which a president can use national militia domestically “like arrests and crowd control. In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer warned that Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”
Trump continues to push ahead with his campaign to limit crime in major democratic cities such as Chicago and Baltimore by planning to deploy the national guard once again. On Monday, Trump highlighted his plans to expand additional National Guard presence across 19 states such as Florida, Ohio, Texas to name a few. However, the Trump administration has made it clear that their intentions with deployment in these other states are not the same as the crime-crackdown motives that were in mind when sending troops to the nation’s capital. An article from Newsweek reported on the matter and discovered:
“The official pointed to the Pentagon’s announcement in July that said some 1,700 members of the military had been brought under the command of state governors to help the Trump administration with immigration enforcement.”
Trump’s intentions to hit his deportation quota and to manage illegal immigration in the U.S. may be hindered by continuously growing legal developments. After the recent court case deeming Trump’s use of the national guard in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. is beginning to show a desire to investigate the use of the national guard in their city as well. As a recent article by Washington Post reports:
“Unlike state governors, the D.C. mayor does not have control over the D.C. National Guard — the president is its commander in chief. But Schwalb’s lawsuit argues that the president has exceeded his authority and that the troops are illegally being used for law enforcement activities.”
Is President Trump exemplifying a tyrannical militia-based rule, or are his intentions just and not worthy of legal pushback?
