Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in National Guard Cases

U.S. President Donald Trump’s deployments of National Guard troops to restore law and order in high-crime cities have run into roadblocks, and on Oct. 17, he asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Local officials of Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, have been taking legal action against the president in response to his attempts to confront crime in two of the most violent cities in the country.

The National Guard is a reserve army that operates in every state in the United States, under the jurisdiction of that state’s governor, and is usually deployed in times of emergency.

The president usually does not exercise authority over the National Guard outside the District of Columbia, except during a national emergency under or Title 10 section 12406, which allows the president to federalize National Guard troops in the event of either a rebellion, an invasion, or if regular law enforcement is unable to enforce the law.

On Oct. 17, Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene in a legal battle over his ability to federalize the National Guard in Illinois.

A district judge on Oct. 9 had issued a temporary injunction against the Trump administration, citing presidential overreach, when the government attempted to send Texas National Guard troops to Chicago to protect ICE facilities against protests.

An appeals court ruled the lower court could not prevent the Trump administration from calling up National Guard troops for federal service, but declined to stay the lower court’s order barring those troops from deploying throughout the state of Illinois.

The troops remain at a training center in Illinois.

A federal appeals court judge seemed sympathetic on Oct. 9 to Trump’s attempt to send National Guard to Portland, Oregon, following recent attacks on immigration facilities by violent protesters.

On Sept. 27, Trump announced on Truth Social that he would be sending troops to Portland, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities were under attack by Antifa, a violent group recently labeled as domestic terrorists by the U.S. government.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on Oct. 9 that ICE will expand immigration enforcement to Portland and Chicago in response to recent violence across the country at ICE facilities.

On Sept. 24, a lone sniper opened fire on officers and illegal immigrant detainees at an ICE office in Dallas. Anti-ICE messages were later found on shell casings. This preceded a previous incident at the same office a month earlier in which a male arrived at the office claiming to have a bomb in his backpack.

On Sept. 15, Trump signed an executive order alongside Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, announcing he was establishing a task force to deploy a multi-pronged law enforcement effort to Memphis to address its record levels of crime.

Memphis had the highest violent crime rate in the United States in 2024, according to FBI data, which was six times greater than the national average at 2,500 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, according to an analysis of FBI data compiled by security.org.

Trump’s deployment of troops began in early August in the District of Columbia, after he declared crime in the city “out of control.”

Since then, 4,067 arrests have been made in the city and 381 illegal guns have been seized, according to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on X on Oct. 9.

Bondi also said that since federal enforcements were deployed to Memphis, 562 arrests have been made and 144 guns seized.