Governors split over mobilizing National Guard as Trump seeks more troops

Members of the National Guard carrying rifles patrol near the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in August in Washington, D.C. Republican and Democratic states are taking different approaches to using their National Guards to help the Trump administration. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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.”

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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.

Some Trump administration critics fear troops could be used to intimidate protesters or voters during the 2026 midterm elections. At the very least, they say, Trump risks politicizing the National Guard — transforming it from an apolitical force associated with providing aid after natural disasters into something closer to another arm of the Trump administration.

Trump speculates New Orleans is next as he weighs National Guard expansion

“I think it is a misuse of the National Guard to try to use the National Guard in this fashion,” said F. Andrew Turley, a former Air Force Reserve major general who retired in 2012 and once served as an Air National Guard assistant to the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force.

The National Guard has two primary missions, Turley said: training for active-duty military service and serving as a state militia commanded by governors, available after natural disasters. Using National Guard members for law enforcement is beyond what they’re trained for and what they’re interested in, he said.

“Many members are going to shake their heads and say, ‘This is not what we’re here for, this is not what we signed up for,’” Turley said.

Broader scope of duties

But Trump and several Republican governors have embraced an expanded role for the National Guard.

For Trump, the troops — camo-clad and sometimes carrying weapons — offer a visually striking way of projecting power. For the governors, signing National Guard members up for stints in Washington, D.C., or helping ICE offers a way to demonstrate support for the commander in chief.

“South Carolina is proud to stand with President Trump as he works to restore law and order to our nation’s capital and ensure safety for all who live, work, and visit there,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, said in a statement last month as he announced the deployment of 200 members of his state’s National Guard to Washington.

At least six other Republican-controlled states have also announced plans to send troops there: Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and West Virginia. About 2,000 National Guard members are now in the district, a figure that also includes members of the D.C. National Guard. The Trump administration is expected to keep troops deployed in Washington, D.C., for several more months, CNN and The Washington Post reported.

For now, the servicemembers appear mostly stationed in high-visibility areas, such as the National Mall and Union Station, with relatively little to do. Video of National Guard members picking up trash recently gained widespread attention. However, “presence patrols” are planned in the future for residential areas, the D.C. National Guard announced last week.

Military personnel patrol inside Union Station in Washington, D.C., in late August. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)

Nearly 80% of district residents oppose Trump taking control of local police and the deployment of the National Guard, according to a mid-August poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. More broadly, a Reuters poll of Americans last month found just 38% support for the National Guard deployment in the nation’s capital.

“We are based in a society where we believe that the members of the military are not deployed against our own citizens,” former Kansas Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius said in an interview.

Sebelius’ father, John Gilligan, was elected governor of Ohio in 1970 in the wake of the shootings at Kent State University, where the Ohio National Guard killed four student protesters and wounded nine others. Sebelius said she has enormous respect for National Guard members, but warned against placing them in an urban environment they haven’t trained for and where they aren’t wanted.

“It’s dangerous for them, it’s dangerous for the citizens,” Sebelius said.

After West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced in August he would send 300-400 National Guard members to Washington, opponents of the deployment sued in West Virginia state court. The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia filed a complaint on behalf of West Virginia Citizen Action Group, which advocates for a clean environment and open government.

The complaint alleges West Virginia law allows the governor to deploy the National Guard outside of the state only for specific purposes, such as training and active-duty military service, and that the Washington deployment doesn’t qualify. “The Governor cannot transform our citizen-soldiers into a roving police force available at the whim of federal officials who bypass proper legal channels,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit is pending. Morrisey press secretary Drew Galang wrote in an email to Stateline that the governor mobilized the National Guard at the request of Trump under the authority of federal law.

“West Virginia is proud to support our neighbors and the Commander-in-Chief when called upon,” Galang wrote.

Deployments challenged

Trump faces fewer legal obstacles deploying National Guard members in Washington than he would in sending troops to Chicago or other cities. Because the district isn’t a state, the president can deploy the National Guard there with relative ease.

Deployments elsewhere have already proven more legally challenging.

When Trump wanted to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles in June, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom objected. Trump federalized — or took control of — the California National Guard and ordered some 4,000 troops into the city anyway, along with hundreds of U.S. Marines.

Newsom sued over the deployment, leading to a bench trial in August before U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer, a Clinton appointee and the younger brother of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

On Tuesday, Breyer ruled that Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act, passed by Congress in 1878 to limit the use of the military to enforce the law following the end of Reconstruction. While the act allows the military to quell rebellions, the judge found none had occurred in Los Angeles.

Breyer issued an order blocking Trump from deploying the National Guard or any military troops for law enforcement but stayed the order until Sept. 12, giving the Trump administration time to appeal the decision. About 300 National Guard members remain in Los Angeles.

Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania who studies military ethics and national security law, emphasized in an interview that the military is trained to neutralize threats to the country and to the U.S. Constitution — not to engage in police work.

Finkelstein, who co-authored an amicus brief submitted in the California lawsuit, said that when it comes to maintaining a sharp division between military operations and civilian law enforcement, as well as preserving military readiness, the domestic deployments are a mistake.

“What is the point of them? The real point of them is a show of force to bring Democratic governors who represent a threat to the authority of Donald Trump under the control of the federal government,” Finkelstein said in an interview before Breyer’s decision.

Robin Galbraith of Bethesda, Md., holds a sign outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., in protest of President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the district. (Photo by Jonathan Shorman/Stateline)

The outcome of an appeal in the California lawsuit could go far in determining how much power Trump has to deploy troops to other cities in the future. Trump signed an executive order last week directing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to make a National Guard “quick reaction force” available for deployment nationwide, the latest signal the president intends to send troops elsewhere.

The executive order directs Hegseth to designate “an appropriate number” of National Guard members from each state to be available for rapid mobilization.

“They need help badly. Chicago desperately needs help,” Trump said in the Oval Office after signing the order.

On Wednesday, Trump said his administration is weighing whether to deploy to Chicago or New Orleans.

Trump has cast the potential deployments as part of a wide-ranging effort to fight crime and has disparaged major cities as crime-ridden, even as violent offenses continue to fall. Homicides and several other serious offenses, including gun assaults and carjackings, dropped during the first half of 2025 across 42 U.S. cities, continuing a downward trend that began in 2022, according to a report released in July by the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.

Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and local leaders in Democratic-controlled Chicago acknowledge crime remains an issue. But they say progress is being made and the situation certainly doesn’t warrant a military deployment.

Pritzker told reporters on Tuesday that he had reason to believe the Trump administration was positioning Texas National Guard members for potential deployment to Illinois — an extraordinary move that would represent one state sending its armed forces into another state without consent. Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office has disputed Pritzker’s assertion.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday signed an executive order aimed at resisting any military deployment. It prohibits Chicago police from participating in law enforcement efforts with the National Guard or other troops, and urges any federal agents to not wear masks, a response to ICE, whose personnel have begun masking during the Trump administration.

“Calling the military into a U.S. city to invade our streets and neighborhoods, to disrupt the lives of everyday people, is an extraordinary action and it should require extraordinary justification,” Pritzker said at an outdoor news conference last week in Chicago. “Look around you right now. Does this look like an emergency?”

Guards in GOP states helping ICE

As Chicago braces for the possible arrival of troops, Democratic governors across the country are also growing more outspoken against Trump’s threatened deployments.

Last week, the Democratic Governors Association released a statement signed by 19 governors accusing Trump of politicizing the military and undermining governors’ power over state national guards.

“This chaotic federal interference in our states’ National Guard must come to an end,” the statement reads.

For their part, several Republican governors are mobilizing their states’ national guards to aid the Trump administration. But so far, those efforts have largely focused on helping deportation efforts in their own states as opposed to preparing for big-city deployments elsewhere.

The Republican Governors Association didn’t respond to a request for comment, but several Republican governors’ offices confirmed to Stateline that their state National Guard has begun assisting ICE in their states. More than 10 states are providing some level of National Guard assistance to ICE: Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

In most states, National Guard members are providing administrative, logistical and other backroom support and not directly participating in immigration enforcement operations. But in at least four states — Florida, Louisiana, Texas and West Virginia — they have been empowered to take part in enforcement operations, according to research by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.

Governors in those states have entered into federal 287(g) agreements that allow ICE to delegate some immigration enforcement duties, potentially including arrests, to National Guard members. While 287(g) refers to a federal law in place for decades, the second Trump administration has encouraged state and local law enforcement to participate. An agreement is also pending with the Arkansas National Guard, according to ICE records.

In Texas, the largest of those states, Abbott has been an enthusiastic participant. In an email, Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris wrote that the governor supports using “every tool and strategy” to aid deportations by the Trump administration and had directed all state agencies to coordinate with the administration.

“Texas will continue to assist the Trump Administration in arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants,” Mahaleris wrote.

In Republican-led states where governors have yet to mobilize the National Guard, advocates for immigrants are urging them to hold off. As Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe considers using his state’s National Guard, for example, Susie Johnson, treasurer of advocacy group Abide in Love Ste. Genevieve, said a deployment would do little good.

The local jail in Ste. Genevieve, a city of about 5,000 south of St. Louis, houses an estimated 60-85 ICE detainees on any given day, said Johnson, whose organization supports immigration detainees in the jail as well as area immigrant families. A military presence isn’t necessary, she said.

“I think that this is probably just a little more of a political game to say, ‘Well, we need to bring in, basically, the military to help control this,’” Johnson said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add South Dakota and to include details on how long National Guard troops might stay in Washington, D.C. Stateline’s Amanda Hernández contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at [email protected].