Trump Using Military in U.S. Cities: Rulings and Trump v. Illinois

Since June 2025, President Trump has been deploying the military in U.S. cities by federalizing National Guard troops — and in Los Angeles also sending active-duty Marines — to protect federal property, back Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and respond to what the White House has described as crime emergencies. Federal courts in California, Oregon, Illinois, and the District of Columbia have ruled against those deployments, and in December 2025 the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, blocked the administration’s legal theory and forced the withdrawal of federalized troops from Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland by early 2026. Troops remain in Washington, D.C., and in New Orleans under a different legal arrangement with the governor.

What Trump Ordered

On June 7, 2025, Trump signed a presidential memorandum titled “Department of Defense Security for the Protection of Department of Homeland Security Functions.”¹ It directed the Secretary of Defense to federalize at least 2,000 National Guard personnel and send them to places where protests against ICE operations were happening or expected. The order was not tied to a single city. Legal analysts described it as a preemptive, nationwide authorization.²

The memorandum characterized protests against ICE as a “form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” and authorized troops to perform “military protective activities” deemed “reasonably necessary” by the Secretary of Defense, initially for 60 days.³ The legal authority it cited was 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which lets the president call the Guard into federal service in cases of invasion, rebellion, or when the president is unable to execute federal laws with regular forces. The order did not invoke the Insurrection Act, though it borrowed that statute’s language.⁴

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth acted immediately. On June 7, he placed 2,000 California National Guard members under federal control; two days later he ordered an additional 2,000.³

Where Troops Went and What They Did

Los Angeles came first. About 4,000 California National Guard members and 700 Marines were sent in after protests against immigration raids in early June 2025, with operations run under the Army’s Task Force 51. The Pentagon said the task force supported more than 170 missions at over 130 locations on behalf of nine federal agencies, including ICE, the DEA, and the U.S. Marshals Service.⁵ One operation on July 7 involved 90 armed Guard troops arriving at MacArthur Park, in a largely immigrant neighborhood, with 17 Humvees and tactical vehicles. Health care outreach workers said troops pointed weapons at them. No arrests were made.⁶ Guard soldiers also joined raids on state-licensed marijuana nurseries in Carpinteria and Camarillo that led to more than 200 detentions and one death.

Washington, D.C. came next. Trump signed a memorandum on August 11, 2025, mobilizing the D.C. National Guard over what he called a “crime emergency.” Over 1,000 troops deployed initially, with Guard members from other states joining, including South Carolina. After a November 26 attack on two Guard members, Trump ordered 500 more, bringing the total to roughly 2,200.⁷ The District sits in a different legal space from the states because the president has broader authority there.

On September 28, 2025, the administration federalized about 200 Oregon National Guard members for Portland, citing violent protests near an ICE detention facility and describing the city as “war ravaged.” State officials estimated the 60-day mission would cost $10 million.⁸ In early October, 300 Illinois Guard troops and 200 Texas Guard members were deployed to Chicago to protect federal property and ICE facilities. The Texas contingent was later ordered home by court order, and the Illinois troops were barred from conducting operations. About 150 troops went to Memphis on October 10, 2025, as part of a multi-agency crime task force; a Tennessee state judge issued a preliminary injunction halting the deployment on November 17, and the state appealed.⁷

New Orleans worked differently. In December 2025, roughly 350 National Guard troops deployed there at the request of Republican Governor Jeff Landry under Title 32 authority, which keeps the governor in command while the federal government pays. Hegseth authorized the mission through at least February 2026, and in March 2026 it was extended for six months with about 120 soldiers remaining.⁹

Trump also publicly floated military interventions in New York City, Baltimore, San Francisco, Oakland, and St. Louis. Nearly all the targeted cities were led by Democratic mayors.⁷

Why This Tested the Law

The Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 federal law codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1385, bars the use of federal military personnel to execute civilian laws unless the Constitution or Congress has authorized it. Violations carry fines and up to two years in prison. The Act covers active-duty forces and National Guard troops when they are federalized. It does not apply to Guard members in “Title 32” status, where they perform federally funded missions but still report to their governor. The D.C. National Guard is always under presidential control. The Justice Department has historically argued D.C. Guard troops can operate in a non-federal “militia” status that effectively bypasses the Act, a claim that has not been tested in court.¹⁰

The administration’s choice to use § 12406 rather than the Insurrection Act became the central legal fight. The Insurrection Act is the established exception to Posse Comitatus. § 12406 is not. Critics argued that federalized troops operating under § 12406 remained bound by Posse Comitatus and could not perform law enforcement functions. A federal judge in California agreed with that view in September 2025.⁴ Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if courts kept blocking deployments, but as of early 2026 has not done so.¹¹

What the Courts Have Ruled

Los Angeles

On September 2, 2025, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that the use of the National Guard in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act. He found that Task Force 51 troops had performed prohibited law enforcement duties, including “setting up protective perimeters, traffic blockades, crowd control, and the like,” and that bystanders and even federal officials at trial could not tell troops apart from law enforcement agents.¹² Breyer warned the administration’s reading would effectively create a “national police force with the president as its chief.”¹³ His order barred troops from security patrols, riot control, arrests, searches, and crowd control, but did not require them to leave. The Ninth Circuit initially stayed the ruling, declining to decide the Posse Comitatus claims.¹⁴

Portland

On November 7, 2025, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued a permanent injunction against the Portland deployment. In a 106-page order, she concluded the president “did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard” and that the federalization violated the Tenth Amendment.¹⁵ She found protests had been “predominately peaceful” and local law enforcement was managing the situation, and she called the president’s descriptions of Portland “untethered to the facts.”¹⁶

Chicago

U.S. District Judge April Perry issued a temporary restraining order on October 9, 2025, finding the administration’s claims about Chicago were not credible.¹⁷ A Seventh Circuit panel of Judges Rovner, Hamilton, and St. Eve upheld the bar on deployment a week later, holding that statutory interpretation is “the business of the judiciary,” rejecting the argument that the president’s determination was unreviewable, and noting that immigration enforcement in Chicago had actually increased during the protests the administration cited.¹⁸

Washington, D.C.

D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued on September 4, 2025, arguing the deployment violated the Home Rule Act and amounted to an “involuntary military occupation.”¹⁹ On November 20, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb granted a preliminary injunction, finding the deployment unlawful because it activated troops for nonmilitary crime-deterrence missions without the D.C. Mayor’s request.²⁰ On December 17, 2025, a unanimous D.C. Circuit panel stayed that injunction, with Judge Patricia Millett citing the president’s “unique power” within the District.²¹ Troops remain deployed in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court: Trump v. Illinois

The legal battle came to a head when the administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the lower court orders blocking the Chicago deployment. On December 23, 2025, the Court denied the request 6-3.²²

The majority — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson — read 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3) to let the president federalize the Guard only when the “regular forces” of the U.S. military cannot execute the laws, and defined “regular forces” as the active-duty military rather than civilian law enforcement. Because the Posse Comitatus Act bars the military from executing domestic laws without congressional authorization, the Court identified a logical trap in the administration’s position: if the “protective functions” troops were performing did not count as “executing the laws” under Posse Comitatus (as the administration argued to avoid liability), those same functions could not count as “executing the laws” for purposes of triggering § 12406(3).²³

Justice Kavanaugh concurred on narrower grounds. He agreed “regular forces” meant the military but said the president had simply failed to make the required statutory determination that the military was insufficient, and he criticized the majority for reaching broader statutory analysis prematurely.²³

Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented, arguing the Court had departed from the parties’ positions and added requirements the statute does not contain, and citing the 1827 precedent of Martin v. Mott for deference to the president’s determination of necessity. Justice Gorsuch filed a separate dissent agreeing the evidentiary record supported a stay but saying the broader statutory questions deserved “a full airing” in a future case.²⁴

What Happened After the Ruling

On December 31, 2025, Trump announced he would “abandon, for now” efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland. By that point troops in Portland and Chicago already “had almost no presence” because of ongoing court orders.²⁵ The same day, the Ninth Circuit allowed Judge Breyer’s order ending the California federalization to take effect, and Governor Gavin Newsom directed Guard leadership to send soldiers home.²⁶ By January 2026, withdrawal from all three cities was complete, with no federalized Guard troops remaining.²⁷

Troops remain deployed in Washington, D.C., where the D.C. Circuit allowed the deployment to continue, and in New Orleans under the cooperative Title 32 arrangement with Governor Landry.²⁵ The Memphis deployment is still working its way through Tennessee state courts.⁷

A separate state-law challenge is also active. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster sent hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., in August and November 2025. In January 2026, the South Carolina Public Interest Foundation and a Navy veteran sued, arguing the deployment violated a state law limiting Guard call-ups to emergencies such as war, insurrection, or public disaster. The South Carolina Supreme Court accepted the case under its original jurisdiction in February 2026.²⁸

What’s Still Open

The Supreme Court’s ruling closed the § 12406 pathway the administration had been using, but the Insurrection Act remains a potential legal route. After an ICE officer shot an individual in Minnesota on January 7, 2026, and civil unrest followed, Trump publicly considered invoking the Act. On January 16, he pulled back, saying he did not currently see a need but would use it “if I needed it.”²⁹ Legal observers note the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Trump v. Illinois creates new obstacles even for that route.³⁰

Election-related deployments are a separate concern. In March 2026, the Democratic National Committee filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and Defense Department after those agencies failed to respond to 11 requests seeking records about any plans to deploy federal agents or troops to polling places for the 2026 midterms. Federal law at 18 U.S.C. § 592 prohibits armed military or federal agents at polling locations. In May 2026, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell denied the administration’s attempt to strike portions of the complaint and ordered expedited processing, with search completion due by July 1, 2026. No records had been produced and no concrete plans had been disclosed as of mid-2026.³¹³²

1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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11
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12
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13
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14
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18
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20
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21
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22
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23
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