When President Trump first announced that he would send the National Guard into cities with high crime rates, there was an outcry of people claiming that this act was unconstitutional. According to NPR, federal judges in states such as Illinois, Tennessee and Oregon even went as far as to file lawsuits against Trump to block him from sending these troops in. However, Trump has now rightly refuted this backlash by citing the Insurrection Act as his justification for sending in the National Guard.
The Insurrection Act was enacted in 1807 and states that the President has the power to enact the National Guard in the instance of “domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.” These circumstances especially apply if the citizens of the State are being deprived of a right secured by the Constitution and the State is unable or failing to protect those rights. Everyone can agree that people should be protected from violent crimes. According to U.S. News, the top four most violent cities in the country are Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis and Baltimore, in that order. Trump has sent or at least threatened to send the National Guard to all four of these cities. According to Memphis’ local news station WSMV 4, Memphis has a crime rate of “2,501 instances of violent crime for every 100,000 people” (roughly 1 violent crime for every 40 people). With crime rates this high, cities like Memphis clearly aren’t protecting their citizens in the ways they should be. The Insurrection Act goes on to say that when a state fails to protect their citizens and their rights, they have denied protections granted to them by the Constitution. The state rights that they previously held in being able to prevent the president from deploying the National Guard in their cities have been forfeited. If you can’t protect your own people, then the federal government is going to have to do it for you. It’s a sad reality that the federal government has to intervene to keep violence at bay in these cities, but if that’s what it’s come down to, then President Trump won’t hesitate to keep Americans safe.
This also isn’t the first time that a president has used the National Guard to suppress and prevent violence in states across the nation. Presidents from George Washington to Lyndon B. Johnson have utilized the National Guard in numerous ways. These troops were used to suppress the L.A. riots of 1992, to escort the Little Rock Nine to their newly integrated schools in 1957 and to fight in the Civil War in 1861. So it’s really not that far-fetched that President Trump would want to use this presidential power to quench crime in our country’s most dangerous cities. This whole situation has been blown out of proportion. Trump has the legal and moral responsibility to get rid of crime in these dangerous cities. A truly great America is one where its people don’t have to suffer under the oppression of constant crime in their cities. It’s time we celebrate the iron fist our president is using to keep our citizens safe.
