University of Kwazulu-Natal

Where Has Trump Suggested Sending Troops In Cities Run By Democratic

Bonisiwe Shabane
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where has trump suggested sending troops in cities run by democratic

In his second term, President Trump has significantly escalated the use of the National Guard. In just four months, Trump has suggested or ordered sending federal intervention to nearly a dozen cities — all run by Democratic mayors and in states mostly run by Democratic governors. The Trump administration has argued that Guard forces are necessary to combat crime, quell protests, or safeguard ICE facilities and personnel. Meanwhile, critics have called it a dangerous abuse of power. The troop deployments have sparked legal battles and protests. Here’s what to know.

For several weeks, Trump has threatened sending troops to Chicago, claiming that the city needs federal help to tackle crime. Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, has argued that homicides, shootings, robberies and carjackings have all been declining. National Guard members walk around outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 9. In his second term, President Trump has significantly escalated the use of the National Guard.

In just four months, Trump has suggested or ordered sending federal intervention to nearly a dozen cities — all run by Democratic mayors and in states mostly run by Democratic governors. The Trump administration has argued that National Guard forces are necessary to combat crime, quell protests, or safeguard ICE facilities and personnel. Meanwhile, critics have called it a dangerous abuse of power. The troop deployments have sparked legal battles and protests. Here’s what to know. President Donald Trump called out five cities across the United States as he discussed his decision to formally declare a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C., triggering a federal takeover of the city's police...

Trump's remarks insinuated that Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland could face a similar effort from his administration, with the president saying the effort to address crime and homelessness in the U.S. would "go further" as he specifically named the cities. Speaking from the White House alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and other cabinet officials, Trump announced 800 National Guard troops will be sent to the capital to "reestablish law, order... He also invoked federal authority to take over the Metropolitan Police Department, citing "special conditions of an emergency nature" under the District of Columbia's Home Rule Act. The move marks one of the most aggressive federal interventions in local law enforcement in recent history. While the president holds direct command over the D.C.

National Guard, governors typically control Guard units in their own states. Some National Guard units patrolling the nation’s capital at the direction of President Donald Trump have started carrying firearms. With the White House in the distance, National Guard troops patrol the Mall as part of President Donald Trump’s order to impose federal law enforcement in the nation’s capital, in Washington, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Members of the Louisiana National Guard patrol Union Station, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib) WASHINGTON (AP) — Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, President Donald Trump has openly mused about sending troops to some of the nation’s most Democratic cities — including Chicago and... The threats to expand a federal intervention have legal experts and some military officials raising concerns that Trump is considering novel ways to use National Guard troops in American cities that could set up... In a nation founded on a revolt against tyranny, the notion of American troops being sent onto domestic streets has always evoked a specter of liberty in peril.

This is why most presidents resisted such a step and why President Donald Trump’s insatiable zeal for doing so may be so consequential. His attempts to send National Guard reservists into Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, against the wishes of city and state authorities, has the potential to finally create the constitutional crisis his critics have feared... It is testing how far Trump can push his Make America Great Again philosophy and his strongman “I alone can fix it” mantra. Originally unveiled at his first GOP convention in 2016, it runs like a spine through his two presidencies. The transfer of reserve troops from red states such as Texas to Democratic cities will also deepen the chasm and the hostility between conservative rural and liberal urban areas that is an increasingly potent... Some background: In his second term, Trump has significantly escalated the use of the National Guard.

In just four months, Trump has suggested or ordered sending federal intervention to nearly a dozen cities — all run by Democratic mayors and in states mostly run by Democratic governors. Local effects: On June 7, Trump deployed the California National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids in the city — some of which had turned into clashes with local... In total, some 4,000 guard troops and 700 Marines were deployed. Next possible cities: Over the past few months, Trump has suggested sending troops to a handful of more cities, including New Orleans, New York City, Baltimore, San Francisco, Oakland and St. Louis, Mo., citing public safety concerns. Read on...

to know more about where Trump has sent or suggested sending troops. President Trump has significantly escalated the use of the National Guard in his second term. One of the major stories of 2025 was President Trump's repeated attempts to send National Guard troops into cities run by Democrats. In peacetime, the National Guard is usually called in by governors to help with things like natural disasters. But this year, Trump sent in troops in several places across the country, sometimes over governors' objections. The president claimed the purpose was to deter violence and crime.

NPR's law enforcement correspondent Martin Kaste followed this phenomenon this year and joins us now, Hi, Martin. DETROW: Can you remind us how this use of the National Guard started? KASTE: Yeah, well, you'll remember in June in Los Angeles there were those huge protests against the administration's stepping up of immigration enforcement and raids. President Trump federalized the guard there, overriding the Democratic governor who said they weren't necessary, and the guard ended up sort of lined up outside the immigration court building downtown. And that seems to have launched this idea for the administration. In the next few weeks, we saw deployment orders for Washington, D.C., Memphis and the Chicago area.

And in those cases, he said that they were being sent in to fight crime. So overall, he's been giving the guard these two tasks this year - protect immigration enforcement and deter crime. DETROW: How effective have guardsmen and women been on those two missions? KASTE: Well, immigration enforcement, after LA, it's been sort of tied up in legal challenges. The administration argues that the guard is needed to protect ICE in democratic-run sort of sanctuary cities, as he calls them, or states like Oregon and Illinois. But the courts have blocked that.

Just last week, the Supreme Court ruled, you know, on an emergency basis that the administration was not justified in federalizing the guard in Illinois around Chicago. But President Trump has been able to deploy the guard on that anti-crime mission more successfully, and the big example, of course, is Washington, D.C., where the president does have more legal power directly... Mayors Karen Bass, Brandon Johnson, Barbara Lee, Brandon Scott and Eric Adams are responding to President Trump's suggestion that their cities — Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Calif., Baltimore and New York — may need... Mike Egerton/PA Images, Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu, Genaro Molina/LA Times, Lloyd Fox/Baltimore Sun/TNS via Getty Images, Peter K. Afriyie/AP hide caption When President Trump announced his plans to mobilize Washington, D.C.'s National Guard and take control of the city's local police force, he suggested that other liberal-leaning cities could be next.

"You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is," Trump said Monday. "We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore — they're so far gone.

… We're not going to lose our cities over this, and this will go further." The mayors of those cities — all of whom are Black and Democrats — have pushed back against Trump in recent days, pointing to data that shows crime is down in their communities. "I think it's very notable that each and every one of the cities called out by the president has a Black mayor, and most of those cities are seeing historic lows in violent crime,"... "The president could learn from us instead of throwing things at us." WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump said he might expand his crackdown on crime in the nation's capital to other major U.S. cities as he announced plans to send 800 National Guard troops into Washington, D.C.

Trump singled out New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland, California during a Monday, Aug. 11, news conference as potential future targets in what would be a drastic escalation of federal presence on the streets of American cities. "We're not going to lose our cities over this. This will go further. We're starting very strongly with D.C., and we're going to clean it up real quick," Trump said. Trump did not elaborate on his plans for other cities.

But one of the two executive actions he signed Aug. 11 directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to coordinate with governors of states and "authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to... "We're going to take back our capital," Trump said. "And then we'll look at other cities also. But other cities are studying what we're doing."

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