WASHINGTON – Texas Republicans laud President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in D.C., saying the move has helped reduce violent crime in the nation’s capital and bolstered public safety.
Trump has signaled he could do the same in other cities such as Chicago and New Orleans. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said recently he had reason to believe Trump was preparing the Texas National Guard for deployment in his state.
Texas state officials pushed back on those statements as inaccurate, but Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has not ruled out sending troops to another city, including Chicago, in support of Trump’s law-and-order agenda.
“Governor Abbott and the State of Texas are ready, willing, and able to deploy all necessary resources to clean up the streets of Chicago should President Trump call upon us to do so,” Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement.
There’s less enthusiasm among Texas politicians for deploying the National Guard to curb violent crime in Texas cities.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R- Texas, held a news conference last week to praise Trump’s D.C. deployment.
Asked if the same approach should be used to reduce crime in Texas cities such as Dallas, Cornyn said he has confidence in Abbott and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to handle the situation.
Joseph Nunn, counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice’s liberty and national security program, focuses on domestic activities of the U.S. military.
Nunn said Trump would need to federalize the Texas National Guard for them to deploy to Chicago – Abbott can’t send them on his own authority at Trump’s request.
“Texas cannot send its national guard into Illinois without Illinois’ consent,” Nunn said. “U.S. states may not invade one another.”
If Trump federalizes the Texas National Guard and orders them to Chicago, they would be limited to specific missions such as guarding federal property or supporting immigration enforcement officers, he said.
“The president and the federal government as a whole has no authority to go into a state or a city within a state and take over local policing,” Nunn said. “That is simply beyond the federal government’s power.”
D.C. presents a different legal situation as the president has more authority over the federal district. Nunn highlighted how Trump has been making more comments about the potential for National Guard troops to be sent into New Orleans.
In that case, the Republican governor of Louisiana could use his authority to direct his state’s national guard with fewer restrictions than federal troops face.
Abbott could similarly send Texas National Guard troops to Dallas or Houston.
Mahaleris said Abbott supports using every tool and strategy to help the Trump administration on deportations and homeland security operations. He did not indicate whether Abbott is considering deploying the guard into Texas cities with a mission to reduce violent crime.
Johnson left the Democratic party for the GOP two years ago, so deploying Guard troops to Dallas would run counter to Republican messaging that it is cities run by Democrats that are allowing crime to run rampant.
Neither Johnson nor Houston Mayor John Whitmire responded to emailed requests for comment on the potential deployment of troops to their cities.
U.S. Rep. Keith Self, R- McKinney, highlighted last week that D.C.’s status as a federal enclave gives the president broader authority to use the guard there.
He said the Trump administration would need to figure out how to conduct deployments elsewhere in line with the Constitution.
“I want to be very careful that we meet the constitutional bars before we deploy the National Guard into the states, because the governors have their own equities, their own authorities,” Self said. “The use of the military forces inside the United States is very carefully circumscribed by the Constitution.”
Self highlighted the distinction between use of the military for domestic operations in cities and a potential surge of immigration enforcement agents into jurisdictions such as Chicago, which the administration has discussed.
It’s possible the administration will opt for a small deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago to back up a surge of immigration enforcement and respond to protests similar to what it did in Los Angeles.
Nunn highlighted how National Guard soldiers in D.C. can be seen wandering around parts of downtown and the National Mall, hanging out in public transit stations and picking up trash.
He suggested using them for such purposes represents a misuse of resources, undermining military morale and readiness and pulling personnel away from missions such as responding to disasters like the recent Kerr County flooding.
“Soldiers are not police officers. This is not their job. They’re not trained to be police officers and they have other responsibilities that are important,” Nunn said.
He said there also are philosophical reasons to keep the military outward facing and tasked with fighting foreign enemies rather than domestic policing.
“You do not have to look very far to see what can happen in a country where the military starts to think of itself as a domestic political actor,” Nunn said.
He highlighted Trump sending troops to the U.S.- Mexico border, using military aircraft for deportation flights and dispatching military personnel to Los Angeles to assist immigration enforcement agents.
“We have never seen in this country a president do this many things to involve the military in what is fundamentally routine law enforcement,” he said.
The law-and-order message has some bipartisan appeal.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D- McAllen, said he doesn’t think National Guard troops are necessary in Texas, which he said has good law and order, but areas struggling with violent crime in other states might benefit from the help.
“I know he’s doing it for political purposes,” Gonzalez said of Trump. “But I’m all for safety . . . I don’t think we should be opposing safer communities, as long as they’re not abusive to members of those communities.”
He recalled being the victim of an attempted mugging in an area not far from the U.S. Capitol where he recently saw National Guard personnel hanging around.
He said he’d rather see those troops than unidentified masked individuals “picking brown people off the street.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R- Texas, said the approach of sending guard troops is designed for a crisis in which local and state leadership is refusing to follow the law. He said sanctuary jurisdictions are defying federal immigration law.
“Local officials don’t have the legal authority to defy federal law, and that’s the pattern we’re seeing,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R- Willow Park, said he hasn’t studied the crime statistics to say for sure whether National Guard troops are needed in areas of Texas.
If they were needed, he said he would support their usage and he predicted Texans would as well because they want public safety.
“When you talk to people on the street, they all want it. They want to have their life back,” Williams said. “Why should crime have overtaken our cities. Why should we let that happen?”
U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R- Irving, said federal authorities should work with local officials, while adding it shows the priorities of those local officials if they refuse federal help with their high crime rates.
“If I had a government that was willing to offer me resources to be able to protect my citizens and make my community safer, I would take it,” Van Duyne said.
Staff writer Karen Brooks Harper contributed to this report.
©2025 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
