As United States President Donald Trump’s administration cracks down on immigrants and protesters in Los Angeles, it has deployed 2,000 members of the national guard to aid its efforts.
Trump authorised the deployment after the protests began on Friday following Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests of 44 people in the city for violating immigration laws.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, former Vice President Kamala Harris and many other senior leaders of the Democratic Party have criticised Trump’s deployment. They’ve described the national guard’s use against protesters as a provocation aimed at further inflaming tensions already roiling the country’s second largest city.
But what is the national guard, and why is its deployment such a political flashpoint?
What is the national guard?
The national guard is a branch of the US military that can perform state and federal functions.
This means the guard is largely used to respond to state-level emergencies but can also be federalised. The president can also deploy national guard soldiers to overseas missions.
The guard’s origins trace back to 1636 when it started as citizen-soldier militias in Massachusetts, which is now a US state but was then a British colony.
The national guard became an organised force after the passage of the Militia Act of 1903. The two world wars solidified its status as an organised branch of the US military.
An air national guard was established in 1947 to complement a territorial force.
How many soldiers are in the national guard?
The national guard had 431,291 members as of 2023, the latest data released by the US Department of Defense.
That included the army national guard, which consists of 326,317 soldiers, and the air national guard, which has 104,974 members.
Many members of the guard serve part time while working civilian jobs or attending college.
All members recruited into the guard have to undergo basic training. After this, they attend drills at regular intervals. Typically, drills take place one weekend each month. Every year, members attend a two-week training.
How is the national guard deployed?
Typically, if a US state is experiencing an emergency that requires a national guard deployment as a response, the state’s governor may deploy its forces stationed in the state.
However, presidents can also federalise the national guard from a state, but typically, this requires a governor’s approval to do so.
When is the national guard deployed?
The guard is deployed in cases of natural disasters or severe weather, civil unrest, war or when election assistance is needed.
In 2005, for instance, about 50,000 national guard soldiers were deployed after Hurricane Katrina hit multiple southern US states.
In January, Newsom deployed the national guard as wildfires ravaged several areas of Los Angeles. In recent years, plainclothes national guard soldiers have staffed polling places during elections.
During the current protests, however, Trump deployed the guard in Los Angeles without Newsom’s approval.
Robert Cohen, professor of history and social studies at New York University, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard without getting Newsom on board was “wrong, but typical of the way Trump’s partisanship pollutes almost all of his major decisions”.
When have presidents federalised the national guard in the past?
In 1957, President Dwight D Eisenhower federalised the Arkansas national guard to desegregate public schools after the US Supreme Court’s Brown v Board of Education ruling, which established that racial segregation in public schools is illegal.
In 1992, California Governor Pete Wilson and President George HW Bush, both Republicans, deployed the national guard to quell riots in Los Angeles. Protests, looting, assaults and arson broke out after four police officers who were filmed beating Rodney King, an African American man, for 15 minutes were acquitted of charges of excessive force.
What is the debate around the national guard’s deployment?
An act called the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prevents the national guard and other branches of the US military from being used in civilian law enforcement.
Presidents may circumvent this by invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which gives the US president the power to deploy the military to suppress an insurrection.
In 1965, President Lyndon B Johnson invoked the act and deployed the guard to protect civil rights marchers in Alabama. He did this without taking Alabama Governor George Wallace, a known segregationist, on board. Before Saturday, this was the last time a US president had deployed the national guard without the approval of the state’s governor.
On Saturday, instead of using the Insurrection Act, Trump invoked a similar federal law, called the Title 10 authority, to deploy the California national guard without Newsom’s approval.
