President Donald Trump signed an executive order focused on using the National Guard to support law enforcement, an idea that's become increasingly contentious as the president deploys the Guard aggressively in his second term.

Trump's order directs the Defense secretary to designate Guard contingents in each state for the purpose of assisting policing, and create a "specialized" unit within the DC Guard "dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital." It also establishes a Guard "quick reaction force" that can be deployed nationwide.

Trump's use of the National Guard has prompted Democrats to accuse the president of acting like an authoritarian when he sent Guard troops to Los Angeles and the nation's capital, and threatened to send them to Chicago and other cities. Trump defended the deployments while he was signing a series of executive orders in the White House Aug. 25, declaring, "I'm not a dictator."

Discussing the possibility of deploying the National Guard in Chicago next, Trump said his critics there call him a "dictator" and say they don't need federal government's intervention.

"A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we like a dictator,'" Trump added. "I don’t like a dictator. I’m not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and a smart person."

Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington, DC, to deploy the National Guard to help with public safety, despite declining violent crime numbers. He also federalized the California National Guard in response to protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles.

The executive order directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to "immediately create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit within the District of Columbia National Guard... that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital." Members of the unit could be deputized to "enforce Federal law."

Trump has broad leeway over the DC National Guard, but is "very limited" in what he can do with the Guard in other states, said Syracuse University law professor William Banks. He can only unilaterally deploy state Guards under special circumstances when they are federalized, as the president did in Los Angeles.

Trump's order instructs Hegseth to ensure the National Guard in each state is trained and equipped for "quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order." It seeks to have a designated contingent of Guard members in each state "reasonably available for rapid mobilization for such purposes."

The executive order appears to be preparing the guard for more domestic crime prevention efforts, said Alex Wagner, a top civilian leader in the Army and Air Force during the previous two Democratic administrations, something he argued the guard is not suited for and shouldn’t engage in.

“I think fundamentally the use of the Guard in a law enforcement capacity is not what guardsmen are trained to do and it’s not why people sign up for the Guard," said Wagner, who served as chief of staff for the secretary of the Army and assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs.

The National Guard has long been used to help respond to civil disturbances, Banks noted.

"I would bet you dollars to donuts that it’s already in the guard manuals in every state... I would bet it’s existing policy," Banks said. "Guard forces have been trained since before there was a Guard to respond to civil disturbances.”

Yet Wagner said such actions by the Guard have been relatively rare over the decades, are not a "core competency" and that “this is what makes the United States different than so many other countries, where we don’t use our military for law enforcement.”

Quick reaction forces are used by state National Guards to respond rapidly to emergencies. Trump's executive order directs Hegseth to "ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment."

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the Trump administration has been evaluating whether to establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force" of 600 troops split between bases in Alabama and Arizona. The concept was tested during the 2020 election, with troops on alert to respond to potential political violence, according to the newspaper.

Wagner said a nationwide quick reaction force is "highly unusual if not unprecedented, given that the Guard is typically controlled by each state's governor."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump order preps National Guard for public safety role amid backlash to D.C. deployment

Reporting by Zac Anderson, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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