by Ariana Figueroa, Arkansas Advocate
August 12, 2025

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s move to deploy 800 National Guard members in the District of Columbia over claims that crime is plaguing the city – despite historic lows –  follows his use of the military in his administration’s growing immigration crackdown.

“(D.C.’s) out of control, but we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border,” Trump said at a Monday press conference where he was flanked by members of his Cabinet, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He vowed to do the same in more cities governed by Democrats.

Trump’s return to the White House was led by a campaign promise of mass deportations, tying newly arrived immigrants at the southern border with high crime rates and the need to use troops to detain and remove those migrants.

Since Inauguration Day, the president has sent thousands of National Guard members to be stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border and has militarized strips of land along the border, putting migrants into contact with military personnel.

Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard in June in response to unrest over immigration raids was seen as a test case for use of the state-based military forces. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California wrote on X on Monday that Trump “was just getting warmed up in Los Angeles” with that order.

“He will gaslight his way into militarizing any city he wants in America,” Newsom said. “This is what dictators do.”

‘Quick Reaction Force’

Now the Trump administration is evaluating plans to establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of 600 National Guard members to remain on stand-by in order to be quickly deployed to any U.S. city undergoing a protest or other civil unrest within an hour, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The groups, who would be armed with riot gear and other weapons, would be split evenly between Alabama and Arizona, according to the Post.

The DOD proposal also calls for a rotation of service members from Army and Air Force National Guard units based in Alabama, Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to the Post.

National Guard members are typically in reserve and are some of the first responders to natural disasters.

The Department of Defense and the National Guard did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment about the “Quick Reaction Force” plans. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Which cities are next?

At the Monday press conference, Trump specifically cited four cities that could see similar National Guard movements: Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – all heavily Democratic cities led by Black mayors. Violent crime in all those cities has continued to trend downward, according to each city’s police database.

Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, New York City and the entire state of California also all are on a new “sanctuary jurisdiction” list issued by the Department of Justice on Aug. 5. They are identified as “having policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.”

But, unlike the district, where the president has control over the National Guard, state governors, under the law, have had control over their National Guard members.

Additionally, while Trump has seized control of the 3,400 officers in the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department for 29 days due to the district’s Home Rule Act, experts don’t see how that can legally be done with other local police departments.

“What they are doing in D.C. cannot be replicated outside of D.C. All of this is only possible because D.C. is not a state,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “There’s no playbook for them to do what they seem to want to do outside of D.C.”

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified Trump’s statements about sending in National Guard members into cities.

“The president is speaking about what he’d like to see take place in other cities across the country,” she said. “When the time comes we’ll talk about that. Starting with our nation’s capital is a great place to begin and it should serve as a model.”

Trump said he hoped other cities were “watching.”

“Maybe they’ll self clean up and maybe they’ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,” the president said.

Nunn said that even if the president were to federalize a state’s National Guard, those members would be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

“There is no statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that allows the military to participate in local law enforcement,” Nunn said.

Los Angeles

A trial is underway this week challenging the president’s move to federalize California National Guard members, in a suit filed by Newsom, after an appeals court temporarily upheld Trump’s move.

The president deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles after protests erupted against aggressive immigration actions by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducting raids in Home Depot parking lots.

But the legal issue before a San Francisco court is not if the president’s actions were unlawful, but on the political question of who has authority over the National Guard.

Other governors in the states Trump mentioned as candidates for National Guard activation pushed back on the notion.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, who served in the U.S. Army, said in a statement that the president’s decision to call in the National Guard to the District of Columbia “lacks seriousness and is deeply dangerous.”

Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the president could not send in the National Guard to Chicago.

“Let’s not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago,” he said.

The conflict between Trump and the Democrats comes at the same time Newsom has threatened to launch a redistricting of California’s congressional districts in order to nullify Texas’ attempt to redraw maps to add more Republican seats to the U.S. House.

And Pritzker is hosting in Illinois the Texas Democrats who left the state to prevent the state legislature from having a quorum after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session for redistricting.

Military forces

Since taking office for his second term, the president has signed five executive orders that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up Trump’s immigration crackdown.

More funding also soon will be at hand for Trump’s mass deportations. The massive tax and spending cut bill enacted in July has as its centerpiece $170 billion for the administration’s immigration crackdown. It bolsters border security, increases immigration detention capacity and adds fees to legal pathways for immigration, among other things. Thousands more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are slated to be hired.

Some Republican governors have agreed to deploy their own National Guard members to aid the Trump administration in immigration enforcement, such as in Iowa and Tennessee. The secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, sent National Guard to the southern border in Texas when she was governor of South Dakota.

Nunn said that while it’s not typically normal for states to use National Guard members for local policing there is some precedent, such as when New York had members stationed in the New York City subway.

“What is unprecedented is the federal government using military personnel for sort of crime prevention, for regular policing,” Nunn said.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content leans center-left by providing a critical perspective of former President Donald Trump’s actions, especially focusing on his deployment of the National Guard to Democratic-led cities and immigration policies. It highlights concerns from Democratic officials and experts about legality and the militarization of domestic law enforcement, while emphasizing the opposition from Democratic governors. The article incorporates a mix of factual reporting and critiques aligned with progressive viewpoints on federal overreach and immigration enforcement, without resorting to extreme partisan language, keeping the tone relatively balanced but clearly skeptical of Trump’s initiatives.