NSL4A, a bipartisan coalition of retired senior military officers, ambassadors, and national security officials, today announced its opposition to  President Trump’s new Executive Order granting the National Guard sweeping authority to perform domestic law enforcement duties,  calling them “ineffective, wasteful, and dangerous.”

This action represents a perilous escalation in the politicization of America’s armed forces. For over two centuries, the United States has maintained a distinct separation between civilian policing and the military. By directing the Guard to assume routine law enforcement responsibilities, the administration is eroding one of the bedrock principles of our democracy: that military power must never be used as a tool of domestic control.

National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A)  urges restraint regarding the President’s plan to deploy up to 1,000 D.C. National Guard personnel in the nation’s capital to address street crime and homelessness. While the President holds direct authority over the D.C. Guard, using military forces in civilian policing risks blurring critical lines between military and law enforcement and eroding public trust in both; further, the National Guard is already stretched near its breaking point, and deployments well outside its expertise risk critically undermining its readiness to perform essential tasks. Accordingly, NSL4A also calls upon Congress to exercise its oversight authority to curtail the domestic use of the military.