Can’t be put to work abducting civilians if they’re busy handing out food.
Not true.
Normally the National Guard in each state is under state control, under command of the state governor.
What the federal Executive Branch can do is “federalize” it, which shifts it to being under federal control.
When Trump has been doing his political theater deployments to “fight crime”, he’s been federalizing National Guard units, and then sending them to cities.
California is using the California National Guard here to distribute food. That’s under state control.
If a unit gets federalized, it passes to federal control. So Trump can yank them off whatever the state has them doing. Them doing state work doesn’t prevent them from being federalized.
There are state militias that can only be under state control that are not subject to federalization, but they’re much-less significant than the National Guard, and in that case, you wouldn’t need to order them to do something else to prevent federalization, because they couldn’t be federalized anyway.
In the United States, state defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. State defense forces are authorized by state and federal law and are under the command of the governor of each state.[1][2][3]
I didn’t think that California actually had a state defense force, but apparently it does; there’s an image right at the top of the the WP page of a California National Guard member being trained by a California state defense member.
English: U.S. Army Spc. Lisseth Puchaicela, right, human resources specialist with the 224th Sustainment Brigade, receives preliminary marksmanship instruction from California State Military Reserve (CSMR) Air Force Staff Sgt. Frankie De Guzman, rangemaster with the 146th Airlift Wing, at Long Beach Armory, California, May 19, 2019. The CSMR trains with and enhances the federal readiness of the California National Guard. (U.S. Army National Guard Photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew Ramelb)
Huh. Not very large, though, less than a thousand people.
Not true.
Normally the National Guard in each state is under state control, under command of the state governor.
What the federal Executive Branch can do is “federalize” it, which shifts it to being under federal control.
When Trump has been doing his political theater deployments to “fight crime”, he’s been federalizing National Guard units, and then sending them to cities.
California is using the California National Guard here to distribute food. That’s under state control.
If a unit gets federalized, it passes to federal control. So Trump can yank them off whatever the state has them doing. Them doing state work doesn’t prevent them from being federalized.
There are state militias that can only be under state control that are not subject to federalization, but they’re much-less significant than the National Guard, and in that case, you wouldn’t need to order them to do something else to prevent federalization, because they couldn’t be federalized anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force
I didn’t think that California actually had a state defense force, but apparently it does; there’s an image right at the top of the the WP page of a California National Guard member being trained by a California state defense member.
Huh. Not very large, though, less than a thousand people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Guard
Compare to the California National Guard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_National_Guard