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Trump’s National Guard deployments aren’t random. They were planned years ago
Members of the National Guard patrol near the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 1 in Washington, D.C.
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President Trump’s deployments of National Guard troops to U.S. cities have outraged his political rivals, tested legal precedents and led to nationwide protests.
The courts are weighing in on their legality. But — if successful — they could also fulfill a long-running administration goal of employing America’s military to aid in the mass deportation of immigrants without legal status, according to an NPR review of past comments from Trump and his allies. It’s a move that would stray significantly from past federal use of the Guard, challenging laws that dictate how the U.S. military can be used domestically. And with the 2026 midterms looming, some experts worry Guard troops could even be used as a tool of systemic voter suppression and intimidation.
Trump has sent troops into four Democratic-led cities and threatened to send them to several more, claiming they are needed to crack down on crime and protect federal immigration facilities and officers. Those deployments, and the White House’s rhetoric around them, have regularly conflated violent crime and illegal immigration into a single crisis, blurring the lines around the role of the Guard and federal agents.
Taken one at a time, the deployments can seem random or fickle — Trump will often muse about sending troops into a city, only to back track his comments and focus on a different city days later.
But the president and several others in his inner circle — most notably Stephen Miller, a senior aide to Trump in his first term, and now Trump’s right hand man on immigration — have long talked about using the National Guard to help with mass deportations and immigration raids, despite U.S. laws broadly preventing the military from being used for domestic policing. To get around those laws, both Trump and Miller have talked about invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy the military within the U.S. in certain situations.
Legal experts, activists and watchdog groups worry the Trump administration could fundamentally change the way the military is used on U.S. soil, specifically raising concerns about the upcoming 2026 midterm elections and what armed troops on the streets could mean as voters cast ballots.
Laying the groundwork
Much of Trump’s campaign ahead of the 2024 election was focused on drumming up anti-immigrant sentiment and pushing his plan for mass deportations. He vowed several times on the campaign trail that he would launch the largest deportation operation in American history.
In his first term, Trump and his administration had similar ambitions, but struggled to scale up infrastructure and manpower needed to carry out the goal.
In a TIME Magazine interview in April of 2024, then-candidate Trump was asked specifically if his plan included the use of the U.S. military.
“I can see myself using the National Guard and, if necessary, I’d have to go a step further. We have to do whatever we have to do to stop the problem we have,” Trump responded.
Using the National Guard for immigration enforcement is an idea that Miller had talked about publicly in the years before.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for policy and U.S. Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller speaks after President Trump signed an order sending National Guard to Memphis, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 15, 2025.
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In 2023, Miller appeared on the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s podcast to talk about how mass deportations under Trump’s hopeful second term could work.
“In terms of personnel, you go to the red state governors, and you say, give us your National Guard. We will deputize them as immigration enforcement officers,” Miller explained. “The Alabama National Guard is going to arrest illegal aliens in Alabama, and the Virginia National Guard in Virginia.”
Miller doesn’t specify how that would be legal — under U.S. law, the military can’t be used for domestic policing unless authorized by the Constitution or Congress. For Democratic-run states that don’t comply, Miller said, the federal government would simply send the National Guard from a nearby Republican-run state.
The deployments
In recent months, the Trump administration has deployed Guard troops to states against the wishes of their Democratic governors — including sending troops from Texas into Illinois. The administration said their purpose was to protect federal immigration facilities and officers. Those deployments are tied up in court challenges.
Members of the Texas National Guard stand guard at an army reserve training facility on October 07, 2025 in Elwood, Illinois.
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Miles Taylor, former chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term, worked closely with Miller. He’s since become a vocal critic of the president and his policies.
Taylor says he’s not surprised to see Miller’s plan coming to fruition.
“Trump was deeply deferential to Stephen and I think you’ve seen that with a vastly more empowered Stephen Miller in a second term,” says Taylor, an author and commentator.
Taylor says that during Trump’s first term, the president wasn’t talking publicly about using the U.S. military for immigration enforcement, but it was something that was discussed behind closed doors.
Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during President Trump’s first term, holds up his phone outside of the U.S. courthouse in Alexandria, Va., ahead of the arraignment hearing for former FBI director James Comey on Oct. 8
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Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
“I can remember in meetings with him in the Oval Office, or on Air Force One, or at the border, him starting to bring up this idea of using the United States military to solve the problem,” he says.
It wasn’t something that Trump just talked about. In 2017, The Associated Press reported on a memo it obtained from DHS, outlining a draft proposal to use the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants throughout the U.S. At the time, the White House denied it, saying there was no such plan.
Taylor says there very much was — but it was also more than that.
“It was the invocation of the Insurrection Act to deputize the military to enforce domestic law to basically become a domestic police force,” he says, noting that this particular idea was something that troubled him and several other staffers.
“It rocked us to our core,” he says.
Trump invoking the Insurrection Act would legally allow for the military to act as police on U.S. soil — to carry out immigration enforcement, but possibly other enforcement too, according to legal experts.
NPR asked the White House about potential plans to deputize the Guard for law enforcement and to use the Insurrection Act, but it did not directly respond to those questions, instead criticizing Taylor and NPR. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson also referenced Trump’s “highly successful operations to drive down violent crime in American cities.”
Project 2025
The broader themes of these National Guard deployments are also embedded in Project 2025, a conservative action plan written by the Heritage Foundation after Trump’s first term that’s more than 900 pages long.
Trump has incorporated many of its policies, and authors into his second administration. So much so that the report’s architect, Russell Vought, is the head of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, in September.
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Dominic Gwinn/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty
Matt Dallek, a professor at The George Washington University who studies the American conservative movement, says that Project 2025 essentially opens the door for Trump’s National Guard deployments — particularly to Democratic-led cities — without explicitly calling for them.
“The subtext of Project 2025 is to take any and all steps at the executive level to go into cities and states to enact the priority — which is to root out illegal immigration,” Dallek says.
The idea of bullying states and cities into following orders from the president is a key part of the text, says David Graham, a journalist for The Atlantic who also wrote a book on the project. So is the use of the military.
“There is this idea in Project 2025, and among the authors, that the military is just an underused resource for policing immigration,” Graham says, noting that often illegal immigration is presented as a national security problem. He says the report’s authors believe that the U.S. has “this huge, huge resource of armed people, and we’re not doing anything with it, and we need to use it to secure the border.”
Beyond mass deportation
In recent weeks, Trump has talked about invoking the Insurrection Act often, especially in regard to deploying the National Guard. Earlier this month, he said that he was “allowed” to invoke it if the courts deny his deployments in places like Portland, Ore., or Chicago, where prosecutors and federal judges have questioned the need for troops on the ground.
Trump invoking the Insurrection Act to allow troops to help with immigration enforcement is also something that Stephen Miller has talked about.
He told the New York Times back in 2023: “President Trump will do whatever it takes.”
That possibility has both legal experts and immigration advocates worried, especially about the implications it could have for Americans at large.
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigration rights advocacy group, says it has her worried about the upcoming 2026 midterm elections and what the presence of troops might mean for voters as they cast ballots.
“What I have said repeatedly is that the path to authoritarianism in this country is being built on the backs of immigrants. They will begin with immigrants. They will not end with immigrants,” she says.
Case: 1:25-cv-13323 Document #: 49 Filed: 11/05/25 Page 1 of 4 PageID #:838
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION
)
PABLO MORENO GONZALEZ, FELIPE AGUSTIN ZAMACONA, and a class of similarly ) situated people,
V.
Plaintiffs,
Case No. 25 C 13323
KRISTI NOEM, Secretary of the U.S. Department ) of Homeland Security, in her official capacity; ) TODD LYONS, Acting Director, U.S. Immigration ) and Customs Enforcement, in his official capacity; ) MARCOS CHARLES, Acting Executive Associate ) Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations, in his official capacity; SAMUEL OLSON, Interim Chicago Field Office Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in his official capacity; ) GREGORY BOVINO, Commander-at-Large, U.S. ) Customs and Border Protection, in his official capacity; U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ) ENFORCEMENT; U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION; and the DEPARTMENT) OF HOMELAND SECURITY,
)
)
)
Judge Robert W. Gettleman
Defendants.
TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER
This matter came before the court on plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order. On November 4, 2025, the court heard argument and considered the written filings by both sides, along with testimony presented by plaintiffs. Based on the record currently before it, the court finds that plaintiffs and members of the putative class have suffered, and are likely to suffer, irreparable harm absent the temporary relief granted herein, that they are likely to prevail on the merits of their claims, that the balance of the equities tips in their favor, and that the public
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The 34-year-old democratic socialist’s team includes familiar faces for New Yorkers. He must now navigate New York’s notoriously provincial politics.
Zohran Mamdani wins NYC mayor’s race
Mamdani, 34, will be NYC’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor.
NEW YORK − In his first hours as New York City’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani has signaled his intention to reassure a nervous political establishment that he is bringing experienced operators into his administration.
On the morning of Nov. 5, the 34-year-old democratic socialist announced a progressive-but-mainstream transition team to execute his affordability-focused agenda.
“The poetry of campaigning may have come to a close last night at 9, but the beautiful prose of governing has only just begun,” Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens, told reporters in front of the Unisphere, a towering steel globe built for the 1964 World’s Fair.
That line itself could be interpreted as an olive branch: it was a reference to former Gov. Mario Cuomo’s famous observation that politicians “campaign in poetry” but they “govern in prose.” Mamdani just defeated Cuomo’s son Andrew, another former governor, in the mayoral race.
“The hard work of improving New Yorkers’ lives starts now,” Mamdani added.
An experienced team
Mamdani, who won the mayor’s race less than 24 hours earlier, takes over City Hall on New Year’s Day. His transition team includes familiar faces for New Yorkers.
Elana Leopold, a political strategist who served under former Mayor Bill de Blasio in several senior positions, will lead the team as executive director.
The four transition co-chairs include Lina Khan, the head of the Biden administration’s Federal Trade Commission; Maria Torres-Springer, former first deputy mayor under current Mayor Eric Adams; Grace Bonilla, president and CEO of United Way of New York City and a former de Blasio administration appointee; and Melanie Hartzog, de Blasio’s deputy mayor for health and human services and, before that, his management and budget office director.
De Blasio endorsed Mamdani, but Adams endorsed Cuomo.
Before Mamdani even won the race for mayor, he faced threats by the Trump administration to strip the city of even more federal funding. On election night, Mamdani called President Donald Trump out directly, saying he would protect New Yorkers as their mayor. Mamdani has said he would work with Trump to ease cost of living.
“Despite the headwinds the city we face as a city and as a country, the mayor-elect has truly rekindled something very powerful: Our shared faith in New York’s capacity to do big things and to dream boldly,” Torres-Springer said.
Earlier this year, Torres-Springer and other top city officials resigned from the current Adams administration. President Trump’s Justice Department dropped federal corruption charges in exchange for helping in the administration’s immigration crackdown, in an alleged quid pro quo Adams has denied. The scandal rocked Adams’ City Hall and contributed to his downfall as a one-term mayor.
During the campaign, Mamdani sought to reassure voters that, despite his young age and little experience in the state Legislature, he could manage the city’s $116 billion budget serving 8.5 million New Yorkers. He will also oversee a police department larger than many countries’ entire militaries.
Notably, he said he would keep current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch in charge of the NYPD. Tisch’s super-wealthy father James donated heavily to previous Republican mayoral candidate such as Rudy Giuliani. Her cousin Laurie Tisch donated $150,000 to an effort to defeat Mamdani.
Mamdani has also been advised by Patrick Gaspard, a former aide to Barack Obama who previously led the liberal Center for American Progress think tank.
During the Democratic primary in June, Mamdani cross-endorsed with city Comptroller Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat seen as a seasoned city politician. Lander’s support proved key in Mamdani’s primary win to defeat Andrew Cuomo, the former three-term governor saddled by a record of scandals.
On Nov. 4, Mamdani defeated Cuomo, running as an independent, a second time. Billionaires spent heavily against Mamdani’s candidacy.
“What we saw last night was New Yorkers not just electing a new mayor, but clearly rejecting a politics where outsized corporate power and money too often end up dictating our politics,” said Khan, an antitrust legal scholar who resigned from the FTC when Trump took office.
On Nov. 6, Mamdani continues his path to City Hall by flying to Puerto Rico, his spokesperson Dora Pekec said. While this sounds like vacation after a grueling campaign, he is Somos, New York Democrats’ unofficial annual power-brokering summit.
Eduardo Cuevas is based in New York City. Reach him by email at emcuevas1@usatoday.com or on Signal at emcuevas.01.
Democratic candidate for governor Abigail Spanberger gives remarks during a rally on Saturday in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Democrat Abigail Spanberger will be Virginia’s next governor, according to a race call by the Associated Press.
Spanberger, who previously served three terms in the U.S. House, defeated her Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. She’ll be Virginia’s first woman governor.
The contest received national attention as one of the first major tests of voter sentiment in response to the Trump administration’s policies.
Virginia is home to around 320,000 federal workers and hundreds of thousands of federal contractors. On the campaign trail, Spanberger argued that federal layoffs, cutbacks by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tariffs, and the federal shutdown were an attack on the Virginia economy — and pitched herself as a way for voters to push back.
“We need a governor who will recognize the hardship of this moment, advocate for Virginians, and make clear that not only are we watching people be challenged in their livelihoods and in their businesses and in communities, but Virginia’s economy is under attack,” Spanberger said at a stop on a campaign bus tour late last month.
That message resonated with Haley Morgan Wright, a voter whose husband is a federal employee currently working without pay during the federal shutdown. She wants Spanberger to use her platform as governor to uplift the stories of civil servants like him.
“He cares about his country, he wants to serve his country and has opted to do it in this way,” she said after casting a ballot in the Northern Virginia exurbs. “He’s not superfluous.”
Spanberger was backed by national Democrats
National Democrats had looked to Spanberger and Virginia Democrats for a boost heading into the 2026 midterms. Former President Barack Obama had campaigned for her and the party backed her in what was one of just two governor’s races this year.
Voters cast their ballots at Huguenot High School on Tuesday in Richmond, Virginia.
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Ryan M. Kelly/VPM News
“The DNC has been spending a lot of money and a lot of time in Virginia,” said DNC Vice Chair Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta at a meeting for party volunteers in Northern Virginia. “Because we know that what you all do and the momentum that is going to come out of your victories is going lead to us flipping the House of Representatives in 2026.”
In 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe with 50.6% of the vote to 48.7%. Virginia governors are limited to one four-year term.
Spanberger, who served in the CIA before running for Congress in 2018, has cultivated a reputation as a pragmatic centrist. The theme of her run for governor was “affordability” — speaking to Virginians’ concerns about rising costs of housing, utility bills, pharmaceutical drugs, and the economic uncertainty she blamed on Trump’s tariffs and federal layoffs.
Earle-Sears, meanwhile, portrayed herself as an example of the American dream — a Jamaican immigrant who became a U.S. Marine and small business owner.
She accused Spanberger of backing policies on transgender rights that she said are a threat to girls’ safety in school bathrooms and locker rooms.
“Love is not having my daughter having to be forced to undress in a locker room with a man. That’s not love,” Earle-Sears said at a rally in late October. “Love is making sure that our girl children have opportunities in sports and are not forced to play against biological males.”
Earle-Sears’ stance on transgender students in girls’ bathrooms sounded good to Elizabeth Drake, a voter who said she works with youth at a church in Loudoun County.
“I feel like we’re actually going back and setting ourselves back a lot by endangering women,” she said. “I’m not saying that that doesn’t mean we can have alternative spaces for people, but the women’s locker rooms, women’s bathrooms, women’s safe homes are not it.”
Winsome Earle-Sears, currently Virginia’s lieutenant governor, in the Virginia General Assembly last month.
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Shaban Athuman/VPM News
The race was jolted by late-breaking events
She also attacked Spanberger for supporting Biden administration policies. She vowed to continue business-friendly polices of outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. While she backed Trump’s policies, Trump did not endorse her.
Several developments impacted the final weeks of the race. The federal shutdown shadowed the final month of early voting, with both campaigns blaming the other party for the stalemate.
Virginia lawmakers began considering a plan to redistrict the state’s congressional districts to favor Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterm elections, as President Trump pushes Republicans in other states to move to favor their candidates. That could be an issue facing the next Virginia governor.
Former President Barack Obama campaigned for Spanberger over the weekend.
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Steve Helber/AP
And Republicans seized on revelations of text messages by Democratic candidate for attorney general, Jay Jones, in which he described the hypothetical shooting of a Republican lawmaker. Spanberger denounced the messages though Earle-Sears faulted her for not calling on Jones to drop out of the race.
Jones was in a tight race Tuesday against Republican incumbent Jason Miyares for the attorney general’s office.
Margaret Barthel covers Virginia politics for WAMU.
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