A trio of Democratic governors this month announced stepped-up state public safety measures in jurisdictions with rising violence and chronic crime concerns even as they publicly oppose President Donald Trump’s moves to federalize local law enforcement and threaten National Guard deployments.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham each said they would bolster state resources for law enforcement in selected cities and counties after Trump in August moved to federalize the District of Columbia’s police authority and suggested he might send the Guard to other large, Democratic-run cities.
Newsom said the California Highway Patrol would deploy “crime suppression” teams to regions including San Diego, the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, the Central Valley, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area and cited a prior round of targeted work in Oakland, Bakersfield and San Bernardino. Newsom’s office pointed to state data showing an overall drop in crime in 2024 and said the deployments are a continuation of more than $1.7 billion in public safety investments since 2019, including stepped-up enforcement against organized retail theft.
In Maryland, Moore announced that the Maryland State Police and the Maryland Transportation Authority Police will assist Baltimore Police Department operations with a focus on high-risk areas and increased visible patrols. Moore acknowledged recent declines in some crime measures in Baltimore but said additional resources are needed to improve public safety across neighborhoods.
Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency in Rio Arriba County, the city of Española and nearby Pueblo communities, citing a surge in violent crime, drug trafficking and public safety threats that she said had overwhelmed local resources. The state of emergency authorized up to $750,000 in emergency funding for the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to coordinate response efforts.
The announcements come after Trump in August used a provision of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to assume emergency control of D.C.’s police force for 30 days. The administration touted the effort as successful, saying it produced a 13-day period with no homicides and the arrests of more than 2,000 suspects. Trump has also publicly proposed sending the National Guard to cities such as Baltimore and Chicago to address violent crime.
Democratic officials have rebuked the federal approach as authoritarian and warned that deploying federal or military forces to American cities risks undermining local control. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in August, “we cannot incarcerate our way out of violence,” and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has urged investment in community violence intervention programs while noting improving trends since the 2020 spike in homicides.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson criticized Democratic leaders resistant to Trump’s federal actions, saying in a statement that Democrats had downplayed crime but were now adopting elements of the president’s agenda. The Biden administration was not a party to Trump’s action; the federal move was taken by the president’s office.
Legal pushback has emerged over some of the administration’s June and August actions. A federal judge earlier in September ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law by sending the National Guard to Los Angeles in June, a decision applying to that state. Separately, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Los Angeles, affecting court-ordered limitations on certain immigration enforcement activities.
State officials said their stepped-up deployments are intended to complement, not replicate, the federal approach. In California, Newsom’s office said the highway patrol operations are data-driven and targeted to areas where state analysis shows they can make a difference. In Maryland and New Mexico, governors framed their actions as a response to local conditions that exceeded municipal capacity and called for coordination with local law enforcement.
The moves illustrate a narrowing gap between rhetoric and policy among some Democratic leaders who have publicly criticized Trump’s federalization of policing but have also faced pressure from residents and business owners to address violent crime and public safety problems. Officials in the affected jurisdictions emphasized that their interventions will be temporary and focused on specific crime hot spots while continuing to pursue prevention and community-based remedies.
Trump has continued to defend and promote his crime initiatives, saying federal actions in Washington, D.C., demonstrated the effectiveness of a forceful approach to violent crime. Governors and local officials who oppose those tactics have nonetheless shown a willingness to deploy state resources to address immediate public safety needs, reflecting a complex interplay of political disagreement and practical response as cities and counties contend with persistent crime challenges.
Officials on all sides said they expect the debate over federal intervention, National Guard deployments and the proper mix of enforcement and prevention to continue as data on the effectiveness of various approaches becomes available and as courts weigh legal challenges to federal actions.