Trump “demilitarizes” cities: remove the national guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland

“We are withdrawing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, despite the fact that crime has been greatly reduced due to the presence of these great patriots in those cities.” US President Donald Trump wrote this in a post on the social network Truth. «Portland, Los Angeles and Chicago would have been destroyed if the federal government had not intervened,” he added, “we will return, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to rise again – It’s just a matter of time! It’s hard to believe that these Democratic mayors and governors, all extremely incompetent, want us to go away, especially considering the great progress that has been made.” In reality, the deployment of soldiers wanted by the administration in some cities in the United States especially to quell protests against anti-migrant measures – such as in Portland, Oregon, where for weeks they demonstrated against the Ice migration agency – has been deemed illegitimate by the highest judicial body in the country, the Supreme Court, in multiple sentences.

In December, for example, the most recent: the American Supreme Court had rejected the request to deploy National Guard soldiers in Illinois and in particular in Chicagodespite the strong objections of local authorities. The decision even saw the six conservative judges of the Supreme Court divided, with three in favor and three against. The three liberal justices sided with the dissents. The Court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration’s position that the situation in the metropolis is so chaotic as to justify sending National Guard troops for emergency situations, in this case to ensure raids against immigrants are carried out.

The military had been present in Portland since September, to deal with the “internal terrorists”, as Trump at the time: that is, the demonstrators who attacked the anti-immigration measures of the local ICE. Even the mayor in Portland spoke out against their deployment: “Like other mayors across the country, I did not ask for – and do not need – federal intervention,” he said, explaining that his city protected freedom of expression, “while dealing with occasional incidents of violence and destruction of property.”

And in Los Angeles, the second largest metropolis in the country, which was hit by large street protests in June, the military arrived at the beginning of the summer. Rubber bullets on the crowd, clashes also in San Francisco and the governor of California denouncing the “illegitimacy” of the deployment. A topic that has been raised by many parties in recent months, but which the administration has only implemented with the ruling of the Supreme Court.

In detail, the Supreme Court justices in December, ruling on the Chicago case, focused on a preliminary question: they were of the opinion that the Trump administration failed to demonstrate which National Guard law allows the President to send the military “to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois”. Trump’s move to deploy the National Guard, characteristic of his unfettered use of executive power, was based on an assessment that the Chicago area was descending into “lawless chaos.”

January 1, 2026

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