Trump team looking to create squad of 600 soldiers ready to deploy at a moments notice to quash civil unrest
As part of the 'Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force,' troops would be equipped with weapons and riot gear, ready to deploy within an hour under the proposals, which could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
Troops would be split in half, with 300 stationed at headquarters in Alabama and 300 in Arizona, according to the newspaper.
The plans under consideration follow President Donald Trump's dispatch of the National Guard to the streets of Washington, D.C. in a bid to crack down on what he says is 'out of control' violent crime. Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles after protests flared up in June against the administration's anti-immigration agenda. That Los Angeles decision is now being debated in a courtroom after California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration over the move.
The documents were compiled by National Guard officials as recently as late July and early August, according to the Post, however, the earliest the proposals could be created and funded is the fiscal year 2027 through the Pentagon's traditional budgetary process, the documents reportedly said.
It is unclear whether the plans could come into effect sooner through alternative funding.
'The Department of Defense is a planning organization and routinely reviews how the department would respond to a variety of contingencies across the globe,' a Defense official told The Independent but refused to comment further on the details.
'We will not discuss these plans through leaked documents, pre-decisional or otherwise,' the official said.
Possible 'negative repercussions' of the program were reportedly discussed in the documents, which included the 'potential political sensitivities.'
'National Guard support for [Department of Homeland Security] raises potential political sensitivities, questions regarding the appropriate civil-military balance and legal considerations related to their role as a nonpartisan force,' the documents reportedly stated.
Other concerns addressed a 'strain on personnel and equipment,' and reducing the availability in states for other missions.
'States may have fewer Guard members available for local emergencies (e.g., wildfires, hurricanes),' the documents said.
The concept of deploying a task force was tested ahead of the 2020 election, with 600 troops put on alert in Arizona and Alabama, the Post reports.
Experts said the plans marked a departure in how the National Guard is traditionally used by the government.
It is not unusual for National Guard units to be deployed to support with state emergencies, including civil unrest. However, Lindsay P. Cohn, an associate professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, told the Post that the proposal was 'strange because essentially nothing is happening' right now to warrant such a move.
'Crime is going down. We don't have major protests or civil disturbances,' Cohn told the outlet, speaking in a personal capacity. 'There is no significant resistance from states' to the Trump administration's immigration policies, Cohn said. 'There is very little evidence anything big is likely to happen soon.'
Details of the reported proposals come as members of the National Guard duly hit the streets of the capital Monday night, accompanied by the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration officers, after Trump held a press conference announcing the plans.
The White House has already claimed that the multi-agency effort, which it has dubbed 'Operation Making D.C. Safe & Beautiful,' netted at least 37 arrests on its first night, yielding four narcotics charges and the seizure of 11 illegal guns.
Crime figures from the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia state that violent offenses have fallen steadily from their recent peak in 2023, last year hit their lowest level in 30 years and have continued to decline in 2025, according to preliminary data for the first half of the year.
Violent crime overall is down 26 percent year-on-year for the first eight months of 2025, according to the MPDC, while robbery specifically is down 28 percent for the same period.
Homicides were up to 40 for every 100,000 people in 2023, a 20-year high but still well below 1990s levels, but has since fallen in 2024 and continued to decline so far this year.
Trump claimed at his press conference that 'murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever,' an assertion that, when challenged, the White House said was based on 'numbers provided by the FBI.'
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called his move 'unsettling and unprecedented.'
Joe Sommerlad contributed to this report
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