Looking at Trump’s executive order and actual crime rates in metropolitan areas
President Donald Trump, who paints a picture of U.S. cities run by Democrats as crime-ridden wastelands, in August issued an executive order to prepare the National Guard and other federal law enforcement for deployment to U.S. cities, ostensibly to combat violence, disorder and undocumented immigration. He’s already started sending large contingents of troops to some major U.S. cities, with threats to send them to more.
The National Guard reports both to individual states’ governors and to the president as commander-in-chief, with different permitted uses in each case. Trump claims his federal deployments are necessary to respond to a “crime emergency” in “lawless” cities and escalate immigration enforcement. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military may not engage in domestic law enforcement unless specifically authorized by federal law or the Constitution. Title 10 of the U.S. Code, including the Insurrection Act, specifies limited legitimate federal uses of the Guard, including to suppress an insurrection, repel an invasion or protect the civil rights of citizens when a state is unwilling or unable to do so.
Trump’s first deployment of troops occurred in June, when he sent the Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass — an action that a federal judge this week ruled to be illegal. Then came the current, ongoing deployment of troops to Washington, D.C., which, as the nation’s capital, is federally controlled. Though the president’s use of the Guard there is legally less restricted than in the states, the District has sued, asserting that this use of the Guard to address a purported “public safety emergency” is illegal.
Trump has made clear that he plans to send troops to other American cities, including Baltimore, which he has called a “hellhole.” Of Chicago, he said this week, “We’re going in. I didn't say when, we’re going in.” He has also suggested deployments to New York City, Oakland and San Francisco.
But how dangerous are the cities the president is targeting? Is there really an “emergency”? Even accepting the dubious proposition that this is a legal, appropriate or effective use of the National Guard, which cities is he ignoring as he zeroes in on population centers run by Democrats in blue states?
The most dangerous cities?
The cities where Trump has deployed or threatened to deploy the National Guard are not America’s most dangerous metropolises.
An emergency?
In recent years, the cities where Trump has sent or threatened to send the Guard have all experienced noticeable homicide declines.
Safety or politics?
The most pro-Trump states in America are likelier to have more violent crime than the most anti-Trump states. Indeed, the eight states with the highest homicide rates all voted for Trump in 2025, as did 22 of the top 25 states ranked by homicide rate.
To the extent that there is any correlation between Trump vote share and homicide rate, it is that — with exceptions — the higher the Trump vote share, the higher the homicide rate.
Trump is transparently flooding Democrat-run cities with federal troops — but a number of U.S. cities with higher homicide rates than New York, L.A., Chicago and Baltimore have Republican mayors. Indeed, at least three Republican-led cities — Dallas (13.6 homicides per 100,000 population), Oklahoma City (10.3) and Fort Worth (7.4) — have higher homicide rates than New York (3.9), Los Angeles (7.0) and San Francisco (4.4), three of the cities Trump has singled out that are led by Democrats.
Finally, though Trump often discusses crime and undocumented immigration interchangeably — and is sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel alongside members of the Guard — the cities run by Democrats to which he has deployed the Guard are far from the only undocumented immigration population centers.