Trump Orders Withdrawal of National Guard from Key Democratic Cities: A Strategic Shift

Donald Trump has decided to pull National Guard troops out of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland.

The former President praised the troops for their role in reducing crime in these cities, which are led by Democrats, but he also criticized local leaders for hindering their efforts.

“We are withdrawing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, even though CRIME has significantly decreased thanks to the presence of these great Patriots,” Trump announced on Truth Social this Wednesday. “Their impact was undeniable,” he added.

Trump further commented, “We may return in a much more robust and different form when crime inevitably rises again—it’s just a matter of time! It’s unbelievable that these Democrat Mayors and Governors, who are so incompetent, would want us to leave, especially given the tremendous progress achieved.”

Earlier in 2025, Trump had sent troops to these cities mainly to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers during raids on undocumented immigrants amidst violent demonstrations by far-left groups. He also maintained that their presence would curb crime.

Despite these deployments, legal challenges emerged right away. Federal courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court last week, ruled that Trump did not have the authority to deploy federal troops without meeting certain conditions, such as addressing a rebellion.

Initial plans had called for hundreds of troops in each city but many soldiers were blocked from actual deployment and placed on standby or had already been partially withdrawn as legal hurdles were raised.

The full withdrawal announced by Trump on New Year’s Eve comes after the Supreme Court on December 23 ruling that refused to lift blocks on the Chicago deployment. This effectively halted similar efforts in Portland and Los Angeles.

Donald Trump has withdrawn National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland 

Members of the National Guard walk past the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on December 19

Trump ordered troops to Chicago, the third-largest US city, and to Portland, Oregon, following his earlier deployments to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C. 

It was a rare setback for Trump’s administration at the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has frequently backed his broad assertions of presidential authority since his return to the White House.

The conservative-dominated court has allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military, claw back billions of dollars of congressionally approved federal spending, move aggressively against immigrants and fire the Senate-confirmed leaders of independent federal agencies.

Three justices – Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch – publicly dissented. 

Alito and Thomas said in their dissent that the court had no basis to reject Trump’s contention that the administration needed the troops to enforce immigration laws. Gorsuch said he would have narrowly sided with the government based on the declarations of federal law enforcement officials.

The Trump administration has argued that the troops are needed ‘to protect federal personnel and property from violent resistance against the enforcement of federal immigration laws.’

But U.S. District Judge April Perry wrote that she found no substantial evidence that a ‘danger of rebellion’ is brewing in Illinois and no reason to believe the protests there had gotten in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Perry had initially blocked the deployment for two weeks. But in October, she extended the order indefinitely while the Supreme Court reviewed the case.

The ICE facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview has been the site of tense protests, where federal agents have previously used tear gas and other chemical agents on protesters and journalists.

Last month, authorities arrested 21 protesters and said four officers were injured outside the Broadview facility. Local authorities made the arrests.

The Illinois case was one of several legal battles over National Guard deployments.

In California, a judge in September said deployment in the Los Angeles area was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained, and the judge did not order them to leave. 

In Oregon, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, in November blocked the planned deployment of troops in Portland. The administration had appealed that ruling.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen in the nation’s capital. Forty-five states have entered filings in federal court in that case, with 23 supporting the administration’s actions and 22 supporting the attorney general’s lawsuit.

More than 2,200 troops from several Republican-led states remain in Washington, although the crime emergency Trump declared in August ended a month later.

A federal judge in Oregon has permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there, and all 200 troops from California were being sent home from Oregon, an official said. 

A state court in Tennessee ruled in favor of Democratic officials who sued to stop the ongoing Guard deployment in Memphis, which Trump has called a replica of his crackdown on Washington, D.C.