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Trump will drop push for National Guard deployments in LA, Chicago and Portland
U.S. Marines and National Guard troops patrol the entrance of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles as demonstrators gather July 4.
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Etienne Laurent
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Getty Images
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President Donald Trump said his administration will, for now, halt its efforts to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after his deployments to the Democratic-led cities suffered a series of legal setbacks.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump praised the deployments and claimed they have helped curtail crime.
"Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were GONE if it weren't for the Federal Government stepping in," he said.
The deployments in Chicago and Portland were blocked by the courts and Guard members left California after a sharp rebuke from a U.S. District Court judge earlier this month.
More recently, the Supreme Court last week ruled against the administration's emergency appeal to deploy troops to Chicago. It was the first time the high court waded into the matter. While not precedent-setting, the ruling brought some clarity to Trump's presidential powers.
Trump had argued that the Guard was needed in the Democratically led cities to quell crime and protect federal immigration officers and facilities. Democratic governors in those states staunchly opposed the deployments and federal judges were also wary of allowing the military to intervene in civilian matters.
"This principle has been foundational to the safeguarding of our fundamental liberties under the Constitution," U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut wrote in her November ruling freezing Trump's deployment of troops to Portland.
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Trump has also deployed National Guard troops to other U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., where more than 2,000 members of the Guard have been patrolling since August.
Those deployments have also faced legal challenges — earlier this month a federal appeals court ruled that troops can remain in the capital city while a panel of judges examines whether the deployment is legal.
A handful of Republican-led states have welcomed the Guard. In Tennessee, troops began patrolling in October. And moments after the Supreme Court ruling, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said 350 troops would deploy to New Orleans. National Guard members arrived in the city Tuesday, member station WWNO reported.
In his Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump promised, "We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!"
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