Arti­cle 2, Sec­tion 2 of the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion des­ig­nates the pres­i­dent as the com­man­der-in-chief of the army and navy of the U.S. and of the mili­tia of the states – now called the Nation­al Guard – when it is called into nation­al ser­vice.  

Until 1916, states main­tained their Nation­al Guards on their own. Now, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment helps, pro­vid­ing fed­er­al fund­ing. Under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, the Nation­al Guard can be draft­ed into nation­al ser­vice or deployed domes­ti­cal­ly. 

Arti­cle 1, Sec­tion 8 allows Con­gress to call the “Mili­tia to exe­cute the Laws of the Union, sup­press Insur­rec­tions and repel Inva­sions.” In 1792, Con­gress passed the Mili­tia Act, which tem­porar­i­ly des­ig­nat­ed this pow­er to the pres­i­dent only in times of cri­sis. In 1795, Con­gress gave the pres­i­dent this pow­er per­ma­nent­ly.

Anoth­er law passed in 1903, 10 U.S. Code sec­tion 12406, also allows the pres­i­dent to “call into Fed­er­al ser­vice mem­bers and units of the Nation­al Guard of any State in such num­bers as he con­sid­ers nec­es­sary to repel the inva­sion, sup­press the rebel­lion, or exe­cute those laws.”  

These stat­ues were Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tions to send or threat­en to send the Nation­al Guard to Demo­c­ra­t­ic cities like Wash­ing­ton D.C., Los Ange­les, Port­land and Chica­go, which he claimed were over­run by crime and in need of inter­ven­tion. 

In a mem­o­ran­dum on Aug. 11, 2025, Trump said: “It is a point of nation­al dis­grace that Wash­ing­ton, D.C., has a vio­lent crime rate that is high­er than some of the most dan­ger­ous places in the world.” It went on to allow the Sec­re­tary of Defense to “coor­di­nate with State Gov­er­nors and autho­rize the orders of any addi­tion­al mem­bers of the Nation­al Guard to active ser­vice, as he deems nec­es­sary and appro­pri­ate, to aug­ment this mis­sion.” 

States are suing the admin­is­tra­tion for the deploy­ments. In Sep­tem­ber 2025, U.S. Dis­trict judge Charles Brey­er ruled in favor of Cal­i­for­nia, which sued Trump for his deploy­ment of troops into Los Ange­les over the sum­mer in response to protests over immi­gra­tion enforce­ment. Brey­er, in his opin­ion, said that Trump sought to cre­ate a “nation­al police force.”

—by Mikay­la Bun­nell, UConn Jour­nal­ism