The National Guard is the unique branch of the American armed forces, with roots in the colonial militiamen and today conducting both federal and state missions. With more than 430,000 men and women on active duty in all the states and the territories, Guard members have part-time duty, yet can be called up by governors in the case of emergencies like natural disasters, or by the president in national operations. Its power as a state is under Title 32 of the American Code, and federal activation is under Title 10, the New York Times reported.
Historic deployments back home
The Guard has been federally mobilized at least 10 times since World War II. Many of those deployments were linked to civil rights struggles, such as enforcing desegregation in the 1950s and protecting marchers in Selma in 1965. Others came during moments of unrest, including Detroit in 1967, cities across the country after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, and Los Angeles in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict. These moments reflected the Guard’s sensitive role when federalized against local wishes.
Trump's new strategy
President Trump defied recent tradition by deploying the Guard on multiple occasions to Democratic-governed cities in 2025. Troops have been sent to immigration detention facilities in 20 different states, as well as the nation's capital and Los Angeles. In September, Trump authorized deploys to Memphis and threatened such as Chicago, New Orleans, and St. Louis. He has also ordered the creation of a roving unit composed of the Guard that can be deployed anywhere in the United States in order to ensure "public safety and order."
Controversy and boundaries
Such activations have been controversial because the Guard has historically been employed as a nonpolitical force in crises or emergencies, not as a political instrument. Rights groups caution that activation without the governors' approval obfuscates distinctions between military and law enforcement authority. A federal court recently blocked Trump from deploying California National Guard forces to Portland, the federal judiciary's check on his powers. But thousands continue activated in Washington and Chicago.
Risk of home deployments
The Guard's internal history is hazardous. Most noted was the incident in 1970 when Ohio National Guard forces shot and killed four Kent State University students protesting the Vietnam War. In that tragedy, the use of soldiers as forces to control riots in the midst of highly political circumstances was revealed. Even as Trump presents his deployments as efforts to combat crime and immigration turbulence, his adversaries contend that the Guard troops are the wrong forces for policing missions and will stoke conflict.
The National Guard remains the focus of America's military apparatus, alternating between service in the states and federal missions abroad. But deploying the force on American home soil under Trump is a very exceptional act that is symbolic on two levels. It denotes the president's willingness to apply military force on home soil as well as the very deep-rooted ambiguities regarding the extent of federal authority in civilian domains.
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