THE MILITARY & DOMESTIC LAW ENFORCEMENTGovernors Split Over Mobilizing National Guard as Trump Seeks More Troops
Republican governors want National Guard members to help ICE, in addition to deploying to Washington.
Inside a bustling Union Station, commuters and tourists breeze past armed military personnel patrolling in groups of three or four as part of President Donald Trump’s surge of National Guard troops and federal agents into the nation’s capital.
Outside on a recent weekday afternoon, Robin Galbraith stood among a handful of people protesting their presence. The retired schoolteacher from nearby Bethesda, Maryland, held a sign saying Trump is “afraid” of free and fair elections.
“We should be respecting our National Guard. We should be respecting our citizens. We should be respecting our cities,” Galbraith said. “We shouldn’t be using them as pawns for Mr. Trump to have power because he’s feeling vulnerable right now.”
Trump’s decision to put the National Guard on the streets of Los Angeles and Washington in recent months and his threat to send them into other major cities have sparked a nationwide fight over the proper role of the Army’s and Air Force’s primary combat reserve force. Trump this week signaled Chicago or New Orleans could be next.
Republican and Democratic governors, who command the National Guard in their states, are sharply divided over whether to deploy servicemembers in furtherance of Trump’s agenda. Their decisions could shape how the nationwide military force, which counts some 430,000 members, is used for years to come.
Seven GOP governors have signed off on sending troops to Washington, while at least 10 have ordered National Guard members to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Many Democratic governors oppose any plans to send troops into their cities, and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, has urged all governors to reject the temptation to aid a “dangerous, politically motivated agenda.”
Trump and his allies say the National Guard is aiding a necessary crackdown on crime and bolstering immigration enforcement. But Democrats and military experts warn that the White House is trampling on longtime norms against the domestic use of the military and normalizing the presence of soldiers on America’s streets. They add that no crime crisis exists that is sufficient to justify sending in Guard members.
A federal judge in California on Tuesday agreed, ruling that Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles had violated a 19th-century law that restricts the domestic use of the military. The case could eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
