Donald Trump has officially pulled the National Guard troops out of the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland. This move followed his assertion that the presence of these soldiers successfully curbed crime rates in these Democrat-led urban areas, although he also noted that local authorities had hampered their efforts.

In a statement shared on Truth Social this Wednesday, Trump declared, “We are withdrawing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the significant reduction in crime rates achieved by these dedicated Patriots. Their impact was the sole reason for this improvement.”

He further hinted at a potential return, remarking, “We will consider redeploying, likely in a more robust manner, once crime inevitably rises again. It’s only a matter of time! It’s astonishing that these Democrat Mayors and Governors, who are incredibly incompetent, would prefer us to leave given the substantial progress made.”

This decision follows a critical Supreme Court ruling delivered on December 23, which declined to lift restrictions on the National Guard’s deployment in Chicago. This ruling effectively put an end to similar legal disputes concerning the deployments in both Portland and Los Angeles.

The withdrawal comes after a Supreme Court ruling on December 23 that refused to lift blocks on the Chicago deployment. This effectively halted similar legal battles in motion over Portland and Los Angeles. 

Trump ordered troops into the cities earlier in 2025 primarily to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carrying out raids on illegal migrants amid violent protests by far-left agitators. The President also asserted that the presence of the troops would help to bring down crime.

The deployments faced immediate legal challenges, with federal courts ruling that Trump lacked authority to federalize the troops without meeting specific criteria, such as to quell a rebellion.

Initial plans had called for hundreds of troops in each city but many soldiers were blocked from actual deployment and placed on standby or had already been partially withdrawn as legal hurdles were raised.

Donald Trump has withdrawn National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland 

Members of the National Guard walk past the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on December 19

Violent crime plunged dramatically in 2025 across the US, including the largest one-year drop in homicides ever recorded.

The year is expected to end with a roughly 20 percent decrease in killings, Jeff Asher, a national crime analyst, told ABC News, based on a sampling of preliminary crime statistics from 550 law enforcement agencies.

‘So, even taking a conservative view, let’s say its 17 percent or 16 percent, you’re still looking at the largest one-year drop ever recorded in 2025,’ said Asher, a former crime analyst for the CIA.

Washington DC’s deployment of around 2,000 troops started in August and was by far the largest, focused on crime and homelessness. In the first 20 days, violent crime in the capital dropped by almost 50 percent compared to the same period in 2024, according to a CBS News analysis.

The capital has seen a 31 percent drop in homicides this year, the largest of any other major city, according to Asher’s analysis. 

Two National Guard soldiers were shot, including one fatally, just before Thanksgiving further fueling debate over the deployments. An Afghan who served with US forces in his homeland has been charged with murder over the attack.

Trump argued that the shooting was evidence of the need for troops in the crime-ravaged capital, while Democrats warned that he was turning soldiers into political targets. 

Last week’s ruling marked a rare setback for the Trump administration at the high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority and has frequently backed his broad assertions of presidential authority since his return to the White House.

The conservative-dominated court has allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military, claw back billions of dollars of congressionally approved federal spending, move aggressively against immigrants and fire the Senate-confirmed leaders of independent federal agencies.

Three justices publicly dissented: Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. 

Alito and Thomas said in their dissent that the court had no basis to reject Trump’s contention that the administration needed the troops to enforce immigration laws. Gorsuch said he would have narrowly sided with the government based on the declarations of federal law enforcement officials.

The Trump administration argued that the troops are needed ‘to protect federal personnel and property from violent resistance against the enforcement of federal immigration laws.’ 

U.S. District Judge April Perry in Illinois wrote that she found no substantial evidence that a ‘danger of rebellion’ is brewing in the state and no reason to believe the protests there had gotten in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Perry had initially blocked the deployment for two weeks. But in October, she extended the order indefinitely while the Supreme Court reviewed the case.

The ICE facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview has been the site of tense protests, where federal agents have previously used tear gas and other chemical agents on protesters and journalists.

Last month, authorities arrested 21 protesters and said four officers were injured outside the Broadview facility. Local authorities made the arrests.

The Illinois case was one of several legal battles over National Guard deployments.

A judge in California said in September that deployment in the Los Angeles area was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained, and the judge did not order them to leave. 

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, blocked the planned deployment of troops in Portland in November. 

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb is suing to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen in the nation’s capital. Forty-five states have entered filings in federal court in that case, with 23 supporting the administration’s actions and 22 supporting the attorney general’s lawsuit.

More than 2,200 troops from several Republican-led states remain in Washington, although the crime emergency Trump declared in August ended a month later.

A state court in Tennessee ruled in favor of Democratic officials who sued to stop the ongoing Guard deployment in Memphis, which Trump has called a replica of his crackdown on Washington, D.C.

The administration has repeatedly sought the Supreme Court’s intervention to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. 

Justices have sided with the administration in almost every case that they have been called upon to review since Trump returned to the White House.