It’s not every day that the question of who controls the National Guard dominates headlines across America’s biggest cities, but as of mid-November 2025, that’s exactly what’s happening. President Trump’s renewed push to deploy National Guard troops to urban centers—ostensibly to address violent crime, homelessness, illegal immigration, and protests—has ignited a fierce legal and political battle, with courts, governors, mayors, and business leaders all taking sides.
According to Military Times, the first cracks in the administration’s campaign appeared on November 17, when hundreds of Guard members deployed to Chicago and Portland were abruptly ordered to return home. The remaining troops in those cities were told they’d spend their time training or on standby at nearby bases, rather than continuing their missions on city streets. This pivot followed a permanent injunction from a U.S. District Judge in Portland, which blocked further National Guard deployment there. Legal restrictions in Chicago also meant Guard members couldn’t operate alongside the Department of Homeland Security, further limiting their role.
But the legal resistance hasn’t stopped at the city limits of Chicago and Portland. In Memphis, Tennessee, a fresh court battle erupted as local officials challenged Governor Bill Lee’s authority to deploy the Guard at the behest of the Trump administration. On November 17, Davidson County Chancellor Patricia Head Moskal issued a 35-page court order temporarily blocking the deployment. As reported by USA Today, Moskal ruled that the governor’s powers are “not unfettered” and that Memphis’s crime rates do not constitute a “grave emergency” or “disaster” justifying such a move. She wrote, “The governor may only call the militia into service in cases of rebellion or invasion and only with the General Assembly’s declaration that the public safety requires it.”
What’s more, Moskal pointed out the absence of a clear, official order mobilizing the Guard, making it hard for the court to evaluate the circumstances. The deployment in Memphis had been ongoing since October, with the number of Guard personnel in the city disputed—Memphis Police cited fewer than 200, but court filings indicated the real number could exceed 700.
These legal challenges are part of a broader trend. As NPR highlighted, President Trump’s efforts to send National Guard troops into cities have been met with repeated resistance in the courts. U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, who issued the Portland injunction, underscored the constitutional concerns: “This principle has been foundational to the safeguarding of our fundamental liberties under the Constitution.” The Defense Department’s recent order to withdraw troops from Chicago and Portland, NPR noted, was influenced not just by the holidays but by the mounting federal court rulings against the deployments.
In Tennessee, the legal fight is far from over. Governor Lee’s spokesperson, Elizabeth Lane Johnson, said the state would appeal Moskal’s ruling and that the Guard would continue operating in Memphis for now. “Memphians know their city is facing a violent crime emergency that the state must address, and we’re confident higher courts will ultimately recognize this as well,” Johnson said. Meanwhile, Benjamin R. Farley, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, called the ruling “one more victory in a line of victories for the law against executive overreach, whether that’s the president or as is the case here, the governor of Tennessee.”
The Trump administration is not backing down. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NPR, “This state court judge fundamentally misunderstood the law and is attempting to act as a policy-maker, not a judge.” And in the case of Chicago, the administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in, a move that could have ripple effects across the country depending on how broadly the justices rule.
While the courts wrestle with the legality of these deployments, political leaders are waging their own battles behind the scenes. In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul is working overtime to prevent a similar scenario from unfolding in her state. As reported by The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, Hochul has teamed up with Wall Street executives in an effort to persuade President Trump not to send the Guard to New York City following the election of socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Hochul’s director of homeland security and emergency services, Jackie Bray, has been meeting with top business leaders to share data showing that troop deployments would harm local businesses and tourism. So far, Hochul’s team hasn’t asked these executives to lobby Trump directly, as there’s no immediate threat of a federal takeover, but the groundwork is being laid.
Trump, meanwhile, has made no secret of his willingness to use federal muscle. Since returning to the White House earlier this year, he’s ordered National Guard and federal law enforcement deployments to several major, mostly Democratic-led cities—including Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, and Memphis. He’s also floated the idea of cutting federal funding to cities that resist cooperation with federal authorities, a threat that looms over New York following Mamdani’s vow to make the city the “strongest sanctuary city” in the country.
New York officials are reportedly taking cues from San Francisco, where Democratic Mayor Daniel Luri, with help from tech titans like Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, managed to persuade Trump to stand down from a similar deployment earlier this year. Hochul’s hope is that the combined clout of Wall Street and City Hall can achieve the same result in New York.
But the legal landscape remains unsettled. In Los Angeles, a trial court initially ruled the summer deployment of the Guard illegal, only for the U.S. Ninth Circuit to overturn that decision in June, citing violence and property damage during anti-ICE protests as justification. In Washington D.C., the city has sued the Trump administration, arguing that the deployment of 2,200 Guard troops is unconstitutional and violates federal law.
Legal and military experts are divided on what comes next. Some, like David Janovsky of the Project on Government Oversight, see the recent court decisions as a reassuring sign that the system of checks and balances is working: “There’s a pretty common theme that deploying the military into U.S. cities is not something that can be done lawlessly. It is a good sign that the courts are standing up and saying that.” Others caution that allowing Guard operations to continue during appeals undermines the principle of judicial oversight. “If it is presumptively illegal to have troops on the streets, it seems completely backwards to let the troops stay on the street until there’s a final determination,” Janovsky told NPR.
As the legal wrangling continues, President Trump has hinted at invoking the Insurrection Act to bypass some of these hurdles, and legal scholars warn that the courts’ power to restrict the president’s use of the military is ultimately limited. As Chris Mirasola, a national security law professor at the University of Houston, put it, “It’s always going to be public sentiment that I think is especially consequential.”
The coming weeks are likely to bring more courtroom drama, political maneuvering, and uncertainty for cities caught in the crosshairs. For now, the fate of the National Guard’s role in America’s urban centers hangs in the balance—waiting for the next move from the courts, the White House, and the streets themselves.
