The recent deployment of National Guard troops and marines to Los Angeles under federal authority, without the request or consent of the State of California, has exposed a dangerous vulnerability in our public safety systems. As local law enforcement agencies respond to high-stakes situations, such as demonstrations, they are being placed in an untenable position: operating alongside federally controlled troops without a clear public safety rationale for being there.
This moment demands urgent clarity.
Across the country, local police departments and sheriff’s offices use bespoke agreements with the federal government for how they will cooperate. There is no one roadmap for where to draw the line between civil law enforcement and federal military action. As a result, when the National Guard or U.S. armed forces show up over the objections of local officials, local law enforcement is put in a position of choosing political sides. To understand the stakes of this problem, ask yourself this: How comfortable would you feel reporting a threat to your safety if your local police had chosen to prioritize a political position over what they claimed were the immediate public safety needs of your community?
The use of local law enforcement as a political football puts communities at risk. It puts officers at risk. And it undermines public trust in the democratic principle that local law enforcement should remain accountable to the people it serves, not to the political agenda of the federal executive.
We must treat this as a wake-up call. Local agencies should not be drawn into federally orchestrated actions that compromise their legitimacy, entangle them in political theater, or place them at odds with the communities they are sworn to serve. As the executive branch continues to flex its authority in increasingly aggressive and unilateral ways, the most effective and principled strategy is to keep municipal law enforcement out of it.
Some cities, like Los Angeles, have adopted sanctuary policies that resist the co-option of their law enforcement resources by federal immigration authorities. While these efforts are important expressions of local autonomy, they were never designed to address how local law enforcement should respond when federally activated troops are sent into their jurisdictions without state or local consent.
We must build on the principle underlying sanctuary policy and develop clear, enforceable standards for how local law enforcement should respond when the federal executive acts unilaterally in situations like the one currently unfolding in Los Angeles.
To that end, states must establish a clear line in the sand. We need laws and policies that do more than limit collaboration. We need enforceable standards that prevent local law enforcement from being drawn, by default or pressure, into federal military operations that have not been authorized by the state.
During the first Trump term, we warned that this kind of federal overreach was not just a legal issue, but a democratic one. The deployment of federal troops in Los Angeles is a manifestation of the systemic issue we feared: when federal authority begins unilaterally asserting itself in ways that bypass local-decision-making, democratic norms collapse.
We call on state legislatures, attorneys general, and national law enforcement associations to treat this as a defining moment, not only for the future of protest response, but for the health of our democracy.
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The Center for Policing Equity (CPE) is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit that uses data science to empower vulnerable communities—particularly Black communities—to partner with leaders on redesigning public safety systems that facilitate bold, innovative, and lasting change.