President Donald Trump said he\u2019s dropping \u2014 for now \u2014 his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks held up the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!” he said in a social media post Wednesday (local time).<\/p>\n
Governors typically control states’ National Guardsmen, and Trump had deployed troops to all three cities against the wishes of state and local Democratic leaders. He said it was necessary as part of a broader crackdown on immigration, crime and protests.<\/p>\n
The president has made a crackdown on crime in cities a centrepiece of his second term \u2014 and has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to stop his opponents from using the courts to block his plans. He has said he sees his tough-on-crime approach as a winning political issue ahead of next year\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration.<\/p>\n
In his post, Trump said the troops’ presence was responsible for a drop in crime in the three cities, though they were never on the streets in Chicago and Portland as legal challenges played out. When the Chicago deployment was challenged in court, a Justice Department lawyer said the Guard\u2019s mission would be to protect federal properties and government agents in the field, not \u201csolving all of crime in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson\u2019s office in a statement said the city\u2019s reduction in crime was due to the efforts of local police and public safety programs. Chicago officials echoed the sentiment, saying in a release Tuesday that the city had 416 homicides in 2025 \u2014 the fewest since 2014.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.<\/p>\n
Governors react<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on X Wednesday (local time) that Trump \u201clost in court when Illinois stood up against his attempt to militarise American cities with the National Guard. Now Trump is forced to stand down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hundreds of troops from California and Oregon were deployed to Portland, but a federal judge barred them from going on the streets. A judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there in November after a three-day trial.<\/p>\n
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement Wednesday (local time) that her office had not yet received \u201cofficial notification that the remaining federalised Oregon National Guard troops can return home. They were never lawfully deployed to Portland and there was no need for their presence. If President Trump has finally chosen to follow court orders and demobilise our troops, that\u2019s a big win for Oregonians and for the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump’s decision to federalise National Guard troops began in Los Angeles in June, when protesters took to the streets in response to a blitz of immigration arrests in the area. He deployed about 4,000 troops and 700 Marines to guard federal buildings and, later, to protest federal agents as they carried out immigration arrests.<\/p>\n
The number of troops slowly dwindled until just several hundred were left. They were removed from the streets by December 15 after a lower court ruling that also ordered control to be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom. But an appeals court had paused the second part of the order, meaning control remained with Trump. In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order.<\/p>\n
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday (local time) ordered the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout time (Trump) admitted defeat,\u201d Newsom said in a social media post. \u201cWe\u2019ve said it from day one: the federal takeover of California\u2019s National Guard is illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Troops will remain on the ground in several other cities. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in December paused a lower court ruling that had called for an end to the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, DC, where they\u2019ve been deployed since August after Trump declared a \u201ccrime emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump also ordered the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis in September as part of a larger federal task force to combat crime, a move supported by the state\u2019s Republican Gov. Bill Lee and senators. A Tennessee judge blocked the use of the Guard, siding with Democratic state and local officials who sued. However, the judge stayed the decision to block the Guard as the state appeals, allowing the deployment to continue.<\/p>\n
In New Orleans, about 350 National Guard troops deployed by Trump arrived in the city’s historic French Quarter on Tuesday and are set to stay through Mardi Gras to help with safety. The state’s Republican governor and the city’s Democratic mayor support the deployment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said he\u2019s dropping \u2014 for now \u2014 his push to deploy National Guard troops in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-211391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}