Trump Abandons Efforts to Deploy National Guard to 3 Major Cities

The troops had nearly no presence in two of the cities, Portland and Chicago. But the decision signaled a retreat, at least for now, in one of the president’s most audacious attempts to test his power.

President Trump said on Wednesday that he would abandon, for now, efforts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court ruled last week that Mr. Trump could not deploy troops in the Chicago area over the objections of Illinois officials. The president’s announcement made no mention of the ruling, but he suggested his administration would not hesitate to deploy troops in the future.

“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The announcement may have a limited effect on the ground, in part because the troops in Portland and Chicago had almost no presence amid legal challenges to their deployment. But it signaled a significant retreat, at least for the moment, in one of the president’s most audacious attempts to test the limits of his power.

Although the National Guard remains deployed in Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Memphis, Mr. Trump’s decision means that he will no longer be trying to send Guard members to states where governors have objected to them, something no president had attempted since the civil rights era.

The president first deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June in response to protests over his administration’s crackdown on immigration. He said the deployment, over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, was necessary to restore law and order in the city. He then deployed troops in Washington, because he said the city was overrun by crime.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to deploy the troops prompted numerous legal challenges, with state leaders accusing the administration of exceeding its authority and infringing on traditional state powers over policing. The state-based troops are typically deployed at the request of governors to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters.

Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago said the Trump administration’s attempt to deploy Guard troops was “both unnecessary and unconstitutional,” and rejected the president’s claim that the presence of the troops had reduced crime in the city.

“We achieved the fewest homicides in Chicago in decades through strong collaboration between our police officers, violence intervention groups and community organizations,” Mr. Johnson said.

Chicago is poised to end the year with steep reductions across all categories of violent crime, including a 35 percent drop in shootings and a 30 percent decrease in murders.

Roughly 300 Illinois National Guard soldiers had been activated, and they remain in the Chicago area. But they have not participated in patrols or functions related to the federal protection mission.

In Oregon, 100 members of the state’s National Guard remain federalized, according to the Northern Command, which directed questions about the future of the deployment to the White House. A White House spokeswoman said she had nothing to add beyond the president’s message on social media.

Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon, a Democrat, said her office had not yet received official notification that the remaining federalized troops could return home.

“They were never lawfully deployed to Portland, and there was no need for their presence,” she said in a statement. “If President Trump has finally chosen to follow court orders and demobilize our troops, that’s a big win for Oregonians and for the rule of law.”

In California, the Trump administration had recently begun backing away from attempts to maintain control of California National Guard troops after last week’s Supreme Court ruling. And shortly after Mr. Trump’s announcement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the Trump administration had to return hundreds of California National Guard troops to Mr. Newsom’s control.

“We won in court,” Izzy Gardon, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, said on Wednesday. “Trump’s rambling here is the political version of ‘you can’t fire me, I quit.’”

The president did not pull back troops in cities in Republican-led states or in Washington, where the courts have not blocked him from deploying them. The governors of Louisiana and Tennessee, both Republicans, have welcomed Mr. Trump’s push to crack down on crime in cities led by Democrats, though leaders in both cities have argued that their crime rates were already dropping.

Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana said last week that about 350 National Guard troops would arrive in New Orleans before the new year and stay through at least February, when thousands of tourists descend for the celebrations of Carnival and Mardi Gras. The troops’ arrival also coincides with the first anniversary of the New Year’s Day terrorist attack on Bourbon Street, when a man drove his car into a crowd of revelers, killing 14 of them.

In Memphis, troops are supporting a broader task force made up of more than a dozen federal agencies, which have carried out hundreds of arrests across the city. But there is still a legal challenge in state court over the presence of the National Guard, after some local and state officials challenged Gov. Bill Lee’s authority to send troops without their input.

Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, has said he did not support bringing in the National Guard, but has framed work with the broader task force as a way of keeping the city involved.

A federal appeals court in Washington ruled this month that the National Guard could remain in the nation’s capital while the court considered the legality of the deployment. A three-judge panel wrote in a 30-page opinion that the administration appeared likely to prevail in the case, largely because of Washington’s unique legal status.

“Because the District of Columbia is a federal district created by Congress, rather than a constitutionally sovereign entity like the 50 states,” the opinion said, “the defendants appear on this early record likely to prevail on the merits of their argument that the president possesses a unique power within the District — the seat of the federal government — to mobilize the Guard.”

In November, Mr. Trump said he was sending 500 additional troops to Washington, adding to the 2,200 already stationed there — a response to the targeted shooting of two National Guard members. One was killed, and the other was seriously injured.

Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman from Chicago; Ann E. Marimow, Zach Montague and John Ismay from Washington; Emily Cochrane from Nashville; Anna Griffin from Portland, Ore.; and Laurel Rosenhall from Sacramento.

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