Slotkin Introduces No Troops in Our Streets Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) recently introduced legislation, the No Troops in Our Streets Act, to put limits on the Trump Administration’s ability to deploy the National Guard into American communities, while injecting $1 billion in new resources to fight crime in American communities. The No Troops in Our Streets Act gives Congress the ability to stop a military deployment at home with a simple majority of votes, at any time.
Slotkin announced the bill in a speech at the Brookings Institution and has since discussed it on MSNBC. She is joined in introducing the bill by Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).
“The U.S. military should always remain apolitical and should never be used as a domestic police force on our streets at the whims of a President,” said Slotkin. “I served alongside our military, and I care about the men and women in our uniformed military deeply. This legislation ensures that no president, Democrat or Republican, can turn our soldiers against our citizens by seeking to restore checks and balances in these domestic deployments. If President Trump were serious about fighting crime in our communities, he would work with Congress to fund state and local law enforcement. This bill does just that.”
“As a Navy combat veteran, I know the men and women in uniform serve to protect the nation, not to be used as political tools by any president,” said Kelly. “We’re drawing a clear line by keeping the military focused on defending our country while giving communities the resources they need to fight crime.”
“Our brave military men and women signed up to defend the Constitution and our rights, not to be used as political props or silence dissent,” said Duckworth. “These un-American, unjustified deployments of troops into our cities do nothing to fight crime—they only serve to intimidate Americans in their own neighborhoods. I’m introducing this legislation with my colleagues to stop Trump’s gross misuse of our military and devote more resources toward efforts that would actually help our local law enforcement—which Trump has actually defunded to the tune of $800 million.”
“This legislation establishes guardrails on the President’s enormous power to deploy military force against Americans at home. Our military is the bulwark of our freedom, defending against foreign threats, not policing in streets and neighborhoods. We must assure that our Armed Forces can focus on our national security interests rather than the local law enforcement—and impose accountability to the President’s potential abuse of authority,” said Blumenthal.
“Unnecessary deployments of troops to peaceful cities like Portland are hurting morale and military readiness, intimidating law-abiding citizens and wasting taxpayer money to satisfy Donald Trump’s authoritarian fantasies,” said Wyden. “While there are already clear legal and constitutional barriers to unjust military deployments on U.S. soil, the No Troops in Our Streets Act ensures Congress can quickly and effectively check any president who mobilizes troops without good cause.”
In recent months, President Trump has used the United States military to patrol American streets in cities like Los Angeles, Portland, and Washington D.C., an unprecedented and dangerous escalation of executive power. The President has deployed, or attempted to deploy, more than 7,000 U.S. troops to five American cities, despite the strong objections of governors and mayors. He has also threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to authorize raids, arrests, and detentions by U.S. military forces in domestic communities.
The legislation would apply to the deployments to Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago. If the President invokes the Insurrection Act in the future, it will also apply to those deployments. It does not restrict state-level deployments ordered by governors, responses to natural disasters, or when the military is supporting law enforcement functions like securing the border.
We have a real crime problem in many American communities, red and blue alike. However, the U.S. military is not a substitute for trained police. If the President truly cared about making our cities safer, he would surge funding to state and local police departments—the people on the ground who know these communities best and are trained to interact with Americans. Instead, he has cut federal funding to state and local police departments by $800 million. These cities need immediate influxes of funding for state and local law enforcement instead of military deployments.
Read the full bill here.
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