President Trump directed the Defense Department on Monday to take a larger role in domestic law enforcement, including by “quelling civil disturbances,” as he threatens to broaden deployments of the National Guard in cities run by his political enemies.
The executive order, released by the White House on Monday morning, also formalizes the creation of specially trained National Guard units in the District of Columbia and all 50 states that can be mobilized quickly for “ensuring the public safety and order.”
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon immediately responded to questions about the order, which came two weeks after Mr. Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia and deployed National Guard troops to the nation’s capital, over the objections of local officials who have said crime in the city is at its lowest level in decades.
Mr. Trump has mused openly about expanding the deployments to other cities, particularly Democratic strongholds like New York, Chicago and Baltimore, saying crime there is out of control. On Monday, Mr. Trump said he could “solve” crime in Chicago in a week, though he hedged about whether he planned to move ahead with sending troops there.
While Guard troops have been temporarily mobilized by governors in the past to respond to natural disasters and occasionally for civil unrest, the order appears to carve out a much larger domestic role for the National Guard.
According to government documents, Guard troops can be mobilized for duty within a state or territory by a governor in response to “a crisis or a natural disaster, or in support of special events when local, tribal and state capabilities are overwhelmed, exhausted or unavailable.” The president can also federalize the Guard himself, as Mr. Trump did in deploying members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles in June — over the objections of the state’s governor.
Monday’s order appears to create a force of Guard soldiers that could be called out by the White House regardless of whether state and local law enforcement are available and able to handle civil disturbances, raising significant legal questions.
“Quelling civil disturbances is the responsibility of state and local law enforcement except in the most extreme instances,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school. “Having soldiers police protests, as this order envisions, threatens fundamental liberties and public safety, and it violates a centuries-old principle against involving the military in domestic law enforcement.”
Under an 1878 law called the Posse Comitatus Act, it is normally illegal to use federal troops on domestic soil for policing purposes. But Mr. Trump, in federalizing the California Guard, invoked a statute, Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, that allows him to call National Guard members and units into federal service under certain circumstances, including during a rebellion against the authority of the federal government.
In California, where Mr. Trump deployed roughly 4,000 members of the National Guard to Los Angeles, citing protests over immigration raids, state officials opened a legal challenge to the deployment, which a federal judge had ruled to be illegal before an appeals court blocked the ruling.
The order also directs a task force in Washington led by a White House adviser, Stephen Miller, to create an online portal for “Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience” to apply to join federal agents in enforcing Mr. Trump’s “crime emergency” order in the District of Columbia.
As of Sunday, there were 2,274 Guard troops deployed to Washington. Only 934 of those troops are part of the D.C. National Guard. The rest have been mobilized from units in Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.
On Sunday, Guard soldiers in Washington who were previously unarmed began carrying their service weapons while on patrol, a task that is outside traditional norms for Guard troops on domestic missions. According to a report published by the Congressional Research Service in April, the typical jobs given to U.S. military personnel who have been mobilized to assist civil authorities include transporting supplies, clearing or constructing roads, and controlling traffic during missions such as border security, natural disaster response and public health emergencies.
The specialized force proposed for the Guard in Washington would be deputized to enforce federal law, according to the executive order, which also directs the creation of a standing National Guard “quick reaction force” that would be available for rapid deployment anywhere in the country. (Federal law enforcement entities already maintain a nationwide network of trained special agents who can respond in times of crisis, like the F.B.I.’s Hostage Rescue Team based in Quantico, Va., which can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the United States for counterterrorism missions, and special weapons and tactics teams at each F.B.I. field office.)
By directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to train a specialized D.C. National Guard unit dedicated to “ensuring public safety” in Washington, Mr. Trump is essentially requiring the city’s Guard to come up with a rapid-response-style unit that can deploy quickly when he decides the need has risen.
Military analysis say that is what the National Guard trains to do anyway — deploy quickly, although usually in the event of a natural disaster like a hurricane. Guard troops have also deployed to respond to political crises, like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, and during the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020.
It is unusual, though, for National Guard troops to just live on standby waiting for the president to decide he wants to target crime in a city of his choosing. Guard troops train part time, often one weekend a month and two weeks a year, to respond to emergencies. They do not sit around waiting for the president to deploy them as a law enforcement arm.
“Most of them are not full-time soldiers; they have separate jobs,” said Pete Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University. “Maintaining a specialized force at a high amount of readiness is tantamount to mobilizing them.”
John Ismay is a reporter covering the Pentagon for The Times. He served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer in the U.S. Navy.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times. He has reported on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism for more than three decades.
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