President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to deport undocumented immigrants and what he says is a crackdown on crime in mostly Democratic-led cities — which have some of the nation’s largest Black populations — is showing no signs of slowing.
The Trump administration launched “Swamp Sweep” on Monday, deploying over 200 U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents to Louisiana to arrest more than 5,000 people, the Associated Press reported. It follows federal troop deployments last month to Democratic-led cities in North Carolina and to St. Paul, Minnesota, after the fatal shooting of a West Virginia National Guard member near the White House. The administration is also appealing a ruling that its 30-day control of Washington, D.C., was unlawful.
So far, the National Guard troops have also been deployed to at least 10 cities, including Los Angeles, and Memphis, Tennessee, despite local crime data showing reductions in violent crime, including homicides, in several of these cities.
Since June, the administration has faced lawsuits from four state attorneys general over its deployment — or attempted deployment — of National Guard troops into cities Trump has said requires federal intervention to restore order.
Here’s how the National Guard deployments unfolded in each city:
Louisiana governor approved operation
The federal government’s immigration enforcement operation “Swamp Sweep” is now focused on southeast Louisiana and parts of southern Mississippi. Beginning on Dec. 1, about 250 federal border agents will deploy — largely staged in New Orleans with the governor’s approval — with a goal of arresting roughly 5,000 people.
The state’s Republican-led leadership enacted a package of laws in May 2024 that banned all sanctuary policies. The lawmakers later passed a law threatening to criminalize those who interfere with federal immigration enforcement and compel local agencies to assist detainer requests.
The Department of Justice has accused New Orleans of operating as a sanctuary jurisdiction. These measures effectively override prior “sanctuary-style” policies such as those maintained by the New Orleans Police Department and the Orleans Parish jail — organizations historically reluctant to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
The Associated Press reports that enforcement teams may fan out beyond New Orleans — from Jefferson, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany parishes to as far north as Baton Rouge, Louisiana — and possibly into southern Mississippi.More than 50% of the populations in New Orleans and Baton Rouge are Black — a demographic more at risk of being stopped by law enforcement while driving.
Twin Cities community has been preparing
On Dec. 2, elected officials and law enforcement leaders of St. Paul and Minneapolis condemned the federal immigration enforcement targeting Somalis in the Twin Cities.
“To our Somali community, we love you, and we stand with you,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “That commitment is rock solid.”
The news conference came after Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home.
Following reports that an Afghan national allegedly shot and killed a member of the West Virginia National Guard near the White House on Nov. 26, Trump moved to review green-card eligibility for immigrants from 19 countries — with particular focus on Somalia and on Somalis living in Minnesota, the state with the country’s largest Somali American population.
Since the early 1990s, thousands of Somalis fleeing civil war have resettled in the U.S.; under federal law, Somalia’s temporary protected status was recently extended through March 17, 2026.
The New York Times reported this week that the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area would see stepped-up deportation efforts. It would use “strike teams” of ICE agents and other federal officers, bringing in about 100 agents from across the country, the Times reported.
Frey and other leaders said they’ve received no information from the federal government about the alleged activity, and that they could not confirm the media reports.
Shortly after the 2024 election, immigrant-rights groups in St. Paul mobilized to prepare residents for a possible surge in enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for potential protests.
That network — the Immigrant Defense Network — includes community-led groups trained in what they call a constitutional-observer program. These volunteers are deployed during reports of raids to document federal activity and verify information.
“These observers are the first responders to ICE and other immigration enforcement actions, trained by IDN partner organizations to exercise their legal rights when documenting federal agents in public,” the Sahan Journal reported.
On Nov. 18, the IDN was put to the test when federal agents raided a business in St. Paul. Fourteen people were arrested, and observers say their rapid arrival helped document the enforcement operation within minutes.
North Carolina’s targeted cities
Last month, the Trump administration deployed federal troops across North Carolina, including in Democratic-led cities like Charlotte, prompting criticism from residents and local officials.
Under “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” the administration says it aims to detain nearly 1,400 non-U.S.-born individuals it considers “hardened criminals” who were previously released from custody.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, condemned the effort, accusing federal agents of racially profiling residents. Since the operation launched on Nov. 15, officials report more than 250 arrests.
Charlotte was targeted because of its “sanctuary policies,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. Five days after the operation began, Mecklenburg County officials said the federal presence had ended — a claim DHS disputed.
Federal agents were also deployed to other Democratic-led cities more than 150 miles away, including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.
Chicago pushing back
In October, a judge blocked the deployment of National Guard troops for at least two weeks, finding no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” was brewing in Illinois during Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Protests have ensued against the immigration enforcement across the city. Raids have resulted in the unlawful arrests of Black Chicago residents, including 19-year-old Warren King and several others in a South Shore apartment building.
Officials with Customs and Border Protection said at an October hearing that they’re taking seriously the judge’s order for its agents to wear and use body-worn cameras. There are more than 200 CBP agents on duty in Chicago equipped with a body camera and know they are required to use it, Deputy Incident Commander Kyle Harvick said.
The judge’s temporary block expired at midnight on Oct. 23.
Black residents in Chicago told Capital B they fear being increasingly targeted after learning about a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement to consider race as one factor during certain raids. This is a concern supported by research showing Black and brown people are already more likely than white residents to be stopped by police, especially during traffic stops.
On Sept. 8, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz with the mission to arrest alleged undocumented “criminals” who sought refuge in Illinois under sanctuary policies enforced by Gov. JB Pritzker, according to a press release about the operation.
Three years prior, the city had an influx of thousands of African, Caribbean, South and Central American asylum-seekers bused from Texas, causing conflict amongst Chicago residents who were already in need. For decades, individuals have immigrated to the Windy City without safety concerns from their home country, and have legally obtained their citizenship.
Protests ensued in Chicago’s downtown as ICE raids popped up within predominantly Black and brown communities across the city. To date, nearly 900 undocumented immigrants had been arrested by ICE, according to federal officials.
Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warned Trump not to send the National Guard into Illinois, or Chicago, which has reported the lowest homicide rates in decades. Johnson signed an executive order preventing local police from cooperating with ICE, and another that creates “ICE-free zones” that limits where federal agents can gather in the city for immigration enforcement activities.
As joint efforts from elected officials seemed to hold off Trump’s deployment of the National Guard into Chicago, Pritzker said the administration put pressure on him to deploy the National Guard as Trump ordered 400 National Guards from Texas to deploy across the country.
Following an ICE raid of an apartment building on the South Side on Oct. 1 that resulted in the arrest of 37 undocumented people, Kwame Raoul, the state’s attorney general, filed a lawsuit calling for a federal judge to block the administration’s “unlawful deployment of National Guard members in Illinois.”
Leaders divided in Memphis
As Washington, D.C.’s takeover was coming to an end and without any extension in sight on Sept. 10, the administration redirected its focus to Memphis. Trump called the majority Black city “deeply troubled” and said that “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”
Negating that homicide rates are at their lowest in six years, the National Guard was deployed there at the urging of Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee. Unlike Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, Lee welcomed a federal takeover without consulting with Paul Young, the city’s Democratic mayor.
Young said he wasn’t “happy” with the deployment of the troops, and didn’t think it would help with reducing crime to get the city off any “bad lists.”
Community leaders remain divided over the takeover.
“Their stated goal is to end crime, and I think that’s going to be hard to actually end it altogether, and so there’s no specific target,” Young said. “They have not given a specific date for how long they will be here.”
On Oct. 10, National Guard troops began patrolling the streets of Memphis.
Ongoing litigation in Portland
In Portland, an appeals court on Monday overturned a temporary restraining order that prevented the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard.
In response to immigration enforcement protests, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in September to send the National Guard into what Trump called, “war ravaged Portland” to protect ICE facilities.
Hours after Trump’s order, Oregon’s attorney general filed a lawsuit in September against the administration to stop the “unlawful deployment” of troops from across the state and California into the city, since protests against ICE enforcement did not rise to a rebellion.
The administration was set to deploy 200 troops into Portland for 60 days.
On Oct. 4, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the deployment of National Guard members from anywhere in the U.S. to the city.
Yet on Oct. 9, judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit signaled they could clear the way for the deployment of National Guard troops, and pause the lower-court ruling that found that Trump may have exceeded his authority by declaring a “rebellion” where there was none. Litigation continues.
What made Washington, D.C., different
Troops already in Washington, D.C., planned to stay “indefinitely,” or at least through the nation’s 250’s anniversary in July, according to a court filing, reported first by Axios, in an ongoing lawsuit filed by District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb to stop the deployment.
Last month, before two members of the National Guard deployed from West Virginia were shot, one killed, near the White House, a federal judge ruled guard deployments to the nation’s capital were illegal. The judge delayed action on the ruling until Dec. 11 to give the administration time to appeal.
In early August, Trump signed a flurry of executive orders following an attempted unarmed carjacking and assault of a 19-year-old former Department of Government Efficiency employee in the Logan Circle neighborhood. A pair of 15-year-old teenagers were charged. One teen, a boy, pleaded guilty in juvenile court in September to felony assault, simple assault, robbery, and attempted robbery charges. Sentencing is scheduled for the end of October.
An Aug. 11 executive order included a federal takeover under D.C.’s Home Rule Act. That was followed by a directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi to local police to cooperate with ICE regardless of any city law, and added immigration enforcement to their tasks.
Unlike other jurisdictions on Trump’s watch list, Washington, D.C., is not a state and does not have a governor. But, Brian Schwalb, its attorney general, filed a lawsuit to stop the administration’s takeover of the local police department. Mayor Muriel Bowser initially pushed back on Trump’s enforcement efforts since the area had experienced a 30-year overall drop in crime.
Over time, Bowser shifted her language, referring to the “federal takeover” as a “surge,” and by correcting journalists in press briefings. As the expiration of the Home Rule Act approached on Sept. 10, she faced criticism for signing an executive order to continue cooperating with the federal government — a move Bowser explained was part of a broader plan to end the takeover.
Six Republican-led states sent hundreds of their National Guard troops into the nation’s capital to assist local law enforcement efforts. During the 30-day siege, officers targeted low-income neighborhoods, leading to the arrests of mostly Black men and more than 900 immigrants, according to a Washington Post analysis.
What’s happened in Los Angeles
In June, dozens of migrants were arrested following ICE raids in Los Angeles’ Fashion District, Boyle Heights, and Pico-Union neighborhoods. Protests erupted.
As a response, Trump directed 2,000 Guard troops from across the state into Los Angeles for 60 days. This action was taken without authorization from California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, both Democrats.
Bass said in an interview with CNN that the president was “creating warfare within cities.”
The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, and Newsom filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for “an inflammatory escalation unsupported by conditions on the ground.” The multiple days of protests had not risen to the level of “rebellion” to deploy the National Guard into the city at the time, the lawsuit said. Bonta told CBS News that most of the protests were peaceful “except some instances of violence.”
Crime in the city decreased in 2024, according to police data. Homicide and shooting victims have decreased by 14% and 19%, respectively.
As of Oct. 8, National Guard troops in California have been ordered by the administration to head to Portland and Chicago. Bonta said in court filings that the move “dramatically broadened” the administration’s efforts to use California’s crop of National Guards “for activities unrelated to protecting federal personnel and buildings.”
The litigation is ongoing.
This story has been updated.