D.C. – President Donald Trump is sending about 1,700 National Guard members to help in a statewide crackdown on crime and illegal immigration. This is a big step forward for his administration’s law-and-order program. The media got their hands on some papers that say the deployment will cover 19 states from August until mid-November, with Texas getting the most troops.
A U.S. Defense official told media that the National Guard men will be a “support pillar” for a “sweeping federal interagency effort.” Their main job will be to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with things like case management, transportation, logistics, and clerical work. The move is also meant to make a “visible deterrent force” that will stop people from crossing the border illegally and committing crimes. The troops are still under state leadership and are federally paid and given a federal purpose, even if they are under Title 32 authority.
This new mobilization comes after the federal government’s highly publicized involvement in Washington, D.C., where about 2,000 National Guard members from the District and six other states have been sent. President Trump said bad things about Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at a news conference. He said, “Mayor Bowser better get her act together or she won’t be mayor for long. We’ll take it over with the federal government and run it the way it’s supposed to be run.”
The President also said that the federal crackdown would probably spread to other big cities, naming Chicago and New York as examples. He termed Chicago “a mess” and said that people there, including some of his fans, are “screaming for us to come.”
Local officials and some data analysts are not sure if the President’s allegations of a crime wave that is out of control are true.
Washington, D.C.: The city’s official crime statistics paint a complicated picture. In 2024, violent crime dropped by 35% from its peak in 2023, while homicides dropped by 32% during the same time period. However, the city’s homicide rate of 27.3 per 100,000 population in 2024 was still one of the highest in the country.
Chicago: Like D.C., Chicago has made a lot of success in lowering violent crime. According to city records, there were more than 30% fewer murders in the first half of 2025 than in the same time period in 2024. There were also about 40% fewer gunshots.
The states that are getting National Guard troops are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.
The deployment is a big step up in how the federal government uses military resources to deal with problems at home. The Trump administration is showing that it is serious about deploying all available resources to fight what it sees as a crime and illegal immigration catastrophe.