President Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in Los Angeles on Saturday marks the first time a US chief executive has used such power since the 1992 LA riots in reaction to the acquittal of four White police officers in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King.
Dozens of people were killed, thousands injured and thousands arrested during several days of rioting in Los Angeles at the time. Damage to property was estimated at more than $1 billion, in one of the worst civil disturbances in US history.
Other federal mobilizations of the National Guard since World War II were made to support enforcement of the expansion of civil rights and ensure public order during the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957; the University of Mississippi in 1962; the University of Alabama and Alabama public schools in 1963, according to the National Guard’s website.
Guard units also came under federal control to restore public order during the Detroit riots in 1967, in response to the assassination of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in 1968 and the New York postal strike in 1970, according to the Guard’s website.
Presidential mobilization of state militias was first authorized by Congress in 1792, in that case to help repel foreign invasions and suppress domestic insurrections, the website says.
The biggest ever federalization of state militias was made by President Abraham Lincoln, when he called up 75,000 troops to fight the Confederacy and later support Reconstruction.
After that, no president federalized state militias until the Detroit riots, according to the website.
