On December 31, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he would pause the push to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon, citing a cascade of legal obstacles. The plan had been under consideration for months, but legal challenges and court rulings created significant barriers to moving troops onto the streets.
Troops had not been deployed in an outright street presence in these cities, with federal courts and the Supreme Court weighing orders and limitations on the use of National Guard forces. In particular, a Supreme Court ruling limited the administration’s ability to use Guard units for immigration enforcement, adding a major constraint to the plan.
California Governor Gavin Newsom and other state authorities had signaled complicated jurisdictional issues and pushback from state officials as the legal battles mounted. As a result, elements of the deployment were paused or reversed, with some Guard units either already federalized or ordered back to state control following court rulings.
Trump indicated that the decision to remove the troops for now was not necessarily a final one. He suggested the plan could return in a different form if crime surged and legal obstacles were cleared, underscoring that the pause may be revisited under altered circumstances.
Overall, the development marks a pause rather than a permanent scrapping of the strategy. The administration’s next steps could hinge on court decisions, changes in federal-state authority dynamics, and assessments of public safety needs in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland.