President Donald Trump has decided to temporarily halt his initiative to send National Guard troops to cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon. This decision follows legal challenges that have obstructed the deployment efforts.
In a social media statement on Wednesday, Trump remarked, “We will return, possibly in a more powerful form, when crime begins to rise again—it’s only a matter of time!”
Typically, governors have authority over their state’s National Guard units. However, Trump had previously deployed these troops to the three cities despite opposition from state and local Democratic leaders, arguing that it was necessary to curb immigration, crime, and protests.
This approach to tackling crime in urban areas has been a significant focus of Trump’s agenda for a second term. He has even considered using the Insurrection Act to circumvent judicial opposition to his plans, seeing his tough stance on crime as a beneficial political strategy ahead of the upcoming midterm elections.
In Los Angeles, the National Guard had already been withdrawn after being used earlier this year as part of a wider strategy to address crime and immigration issues.
Trump claimed that the presence of troops led to a reduction in crime across the three cities, although they were never actually deployed in Chicago and Portland due to ongoing legal proceedings. During a court challenge regarding the potential deployment in Chicago, a Justice Department attorney clarified that the mission of the Guard would be to protect federal properties and government personnel, not to tackle all crime in the city.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s office in a statement said the city’s 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 – the fewest since 2014.
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
Governors react
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’s efforts.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote on X Wednesday that Trump “lost in court when Illinois stood up against his attempt to militarize American cities with the National Guard. Now Trump is forced to stand down.”
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.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement Wednesday that her office had not yet received “official notification that the remaining federalized 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 demobilize our troops, that’s a big win for Oregonians and for the rule of law.”
Trump’s decision to federalize 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.
The number of troops slowly dwindled until just several hundred were left. They were removed from the streets by Dec. 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.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.
“About time (Trump) admitted defeat,” Newsom said in a social media post. “We’ve said it from day one: the federal takeover of California’s National Guard is illegal.”
Troops will remain on the ground in several other cities. The U.S. 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, D.C., where they’ve been deployed since August after Trump declared a “crime emergency.”
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’s 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.
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.
Ding reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, Jack Brook in New Orleans and Adrian Sanz in Memphis contributed.
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