National Guard troops were quietly withdrawn from U.S. cities
The Trump administration has withdrawn all federalized National Guard troops from U.S. cities, after its repeated attempts to surge forces into Democratic-run states encountered judicial roadblocks.
The pullout was completed last month with no public acknowledgment from the White House or the Pentagon other than a social media post weeks earlier in which President Donald Trump forecast the troops’ removal. It was a remarkable turnabout after Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had insisted the mobilizations were necessary to combat what they claimed was unchecked violence and to support enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.
The White House on Wednesday referred questions to Trump’s Truth Social post from December warning it was “Only a question of time!” before crime would begin “to soar again,” necessitating a return “perhaps in a much different and stronger form.”
The Pentagon did not address questions about the withdrawal.
The deployments — including more than 5,000 troops to Los Angeles, about 500 into Chicago and 200 to Portland, Oregon — were ordered despite the vehement opposition from state and local leaders who labeled the administration’s actions an unlawful abuse of presidential authority. All of those service members were sent home by the end of January, according to U.S. Northern Command. The vast majority of the troops sent to L.A. were demobilized in late July, leaving 100 in the area before the pullout.
More than 2,500 National Guard members remain in D.C. in response to Trump’s ordered deployment, but under a nonfederal status. Their mission — part crackdown on crime and part sanitation duty — is expected to last until the end of the year. Additionally, there is an ongoing Guard presence in Memphis and New Orleans, but those missions, while funded by the federal government under a novel agreement with the Trump administration, are overseen by each state’s governor.
Spokespeople for the White House and the Pentagon did not immediately address questions about the troops’ withdrawal.
In late December, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary order blocking Trump from carrying out the Chicago deployment because, it said, the president’s ability to federalize the National Guard likely applies only in “exceptional” circumstances. The ruling has called into question any broader plans by the administration to use federal troops domestically to respond to civil unrest.
The deployments have cost more than $496 million, the Congressional Budget Office reported in January.
The troops in Chicago, L.A. and Portland were deployed under federal orders known as Title 10, which allows the president to exert federal authority over a state’s National Guard, such as when those troops are deployed overseas in wartime. If the deployment is on U.S. soil, they can still be put in Title 10 status, but the law places significant restrictions on what they can do. Importantly, they cannot perform law enforcement activities, such as making arrests and conducting searches, so in many cases, the personnel involved in Trump’s domestic deployments were relegated to guarding federal buildings and carrying out other menial tasks.
The laws governing what troops can and can’t do on U.S. soil made them “100% ineffective in doing what [Trump] wanted them to do,” which was to help control the protests that grew from his immigration enforcement directives, said Randy Manner, a retired Army two-star general and former acting vice chief of the National Guard.
“The administration,” Manner said, “finally realized the amount of resistance that was coming up, in terms of legal and public condemnation, was more than anyone anticipated.”
The pullback from L.A., Chicago and Portland also raises questions about the administration’s plan to create a nationwide quick reaction force of National Guard members designated to deploy immediately into any area experiencing civil unrest. In the months since The Washington Post first reported that the Pentagon was considering creating such a unit, the administration has appeared to take a different tack, favoring expanded use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Customs and Border Protection personnel and other Department of Homeland Security forces who dress and are equipped like soldiers but are not subject to the same legal restrictions on their use of force.
The administration’s critics have said Trump and other officials’ fiery rhetoric in virtually all cases defied reality, as unrest in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland never reached a breaking point.
In some instances, Guard members were used for duty outside the scope of their original mission, including one operation to assist ICE agents during a raid on a marijuana farm 100 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
Troops assigned to the mission in other cities were restricted by court decisions that barred them from taking to the streets, forcing commanders to sequester them at depots where they trained for mobilizations that never fully took full shape.
The Pentagon in January ordered about 1,500 active-duty troops to prepare for a deployment to Minneapolis, the site of mass demonstrations objecting to violent immigration enforcement raids and the killing of two American citizens by federal agents. That deployment never materialized, and the Trump administration — facing widespread criticism, including from some Republicans — dialed back the number of ICE and CBP personnel there.
In Memphis and New Orleans, hundreds of National Guard troops remain deployed under Title 32, or state control, which allows broader powers for law enforcement and in conducting arrests. In those cases, Trump found supportive Republican governors who allowed a surge, and by making an official request to the White House for support, they received federal funds to pay for the deployment.
In Washington, where Trump said Guard members were mobilized to help reduce crime, they initially were tasked with picking up trash and clearing debris, while others patrolled inside Metro stations and gathering spots like the National Mall and Union Station. As D.C. was hit by a severe ice storm in early January, Guard members assisted in clearing roads and sidewalks.
In November, two National Guard members were shot by an attacker near the White House, killing Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and severely injuring Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who is still recovering.