Explained | Trump's use of National Guard sparks a constitutional showdown with US states

Donald Trump

President Donald Trump’s fresh attempt to send National Guard troops across state lines has opened a new constitutional clash in the United States. The move — opposed by several Democratic governors — is now being challenged in court, setting up a test of how far a president can go in deploying the military on domestic soil, AP reported.

At the heart of the dispute is Trump’s decision to federalise Guard members from states like California and Texas and send them to Oregon and Illinois. Traditionally, each U.S. state’s National Guard is under the command of its governor, except when the president formally brings it under federal control.

Critics cited by AP see Trump’s latest orders as an aggressive expansion of presidential power. “What will happen when the president loses in court?” asked Alex Reinert, a constitutional law scholar at Cardozo School of Law in New York City. “Will he use it as an excuse to act in an even more authoritarian way?”

Trump, however, has defended his actions, saying local officials have failed to ensure public safety. “You guys are framing this like, ‘The president wants to take over the American cities with the military,’” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “The president wants to help these local leaders who have been completely ineffective in securing their own cities.”

AP reported that troops have already been deployed in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., with Trump describing some Democratic-run cities as “war ravaged” and “like living in hell.”

The president’s remarks to top military leaders last week further intensified debate. Calling for U.S. cities to serve as “training grounds for troops,” Trump warned of what he termed an “invasion from within.” To many observers, this represented one of the starkest examples yet of his willingness to use force domestically.

Legal experts say Trump’s move pushes against the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the use of federal troops in domestic law enforcement — a reflection of America’s long-standing belief that policing should remain a civilian function.

As per AP, senior officials acknowledged that the troop movements were ordered directly by the White House, bypassing the normal Pentagon approval process. Usually, such exceptions are reserved for emergencies like natural disasters.

Governors Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois, both Democrats, have filed lawsuits challenging the deployments. Pentagon officials, caught between political pressure and legal uncertainty, have reportedly struggled to confirm troop numbers or even the scope of operations, deferring most questions to the White House.

According to AP, legal scholars have compared Trump’s actions to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 decision to federalize the Alabama National Guard — but with a key difference. William Banks, a constitutional law expert from Syracuse University, told AP that Kennedy acted to enforce federal civil rights laws, while Trump’s rationale is to “protect federal property and personnel.”

“The Guard members cannot enforce local laws, block traffic or do any of the things that police do,” Banks said. “So it’s more symbolic than helpful.”

In the courts, the first major setback came when a Trump-appointed judge blocked troop deployment to Portland. That drew a fierce response from Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who claimed on social media that “a district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the President and Commander-in-Chief from dispatching members of the U.S. military.”

According to AP, legal experts say such rhetoric is unlikely to sway judges, who will focus on whether Trump’s orders violate constitutional limits and federal laws governing the Guard.

Elizabeth Goitein of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice warned that the president’s move to send California Guard troops to Oregon “is a clear violation of the law” and appears to defy the judge’s ruling. She added that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seem to view U.S. cities as training grounds for warfare.

“What the military is trained to do is to fight and destroy enemies of the United States,” Goitein wrote online. “The president of the United States wants soldiers to practice this battle training in the streets of American cities.”

Experts cited by AP cautioned that if Trump were to ignore court rulings, it could trigger a full-blown constitutional crisis. “The potential that they would defy an order from a federal court is very worrisome,” Banks said. “That’s our backstop. That’s what we have in the United States to keep our democracy on the rails.”

With inputs from AP