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What are the laws and regulations regarding military training in urban areas in the US?
Executive summary
Federal law restricts how and where active-duty troops may perform domestic law‑enforcement functions — most notably through the Posse Comitatus Act and related legal limits cited by reporting on 2025 deployments — and Congress controls military construction for urban‑training facilities under 10 U.S.C. §2859 (certification, strategy and congressional notice requirements) [1] [2]. Reporting and service documents show the military actively builds and refines urban‑operations training at bases and ranges while internal regulations (like updated Army training regs) and political proposals to use U.S. cities as “training grounds” have sparked legal and civil‑military debate [2] [3] [1].
1. Federal criminal‑law and statutory guardrails: Posse Comitatus and deployments
The major legal constraint on using federal military forces to perform domestic law enforcement is rooted in the Posse Comitatus tradition; recent reporting frames proposals to use cities as “training grounds” for troops as “running into long‑standing legal barriers,” noting the Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from enforcing domestic law without congressional approval [1]. Military.com coverage of 2025 events highlights a federal judge blocking some deployments that performed law‑enforcement functions, illustrating that courts remain a check on executive efforts to deploy forces domestically for policing tasks [4].
2. Statutory limits on building urban‑training facilities: 10 U.S.C. §2859
Congress has written procedural controls into military construction law: 10 U.S.C. §2859 requires that, before carrying out construction of facilities “designed to provide training in urban operations,” the Secretary of Defense must approve an urban‑operations training strategy and the Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness must certify the project meets joint and interagency capability requirements and report to relevant congressional committees [2]. That statute also contains carve‑outs for certain authorities and was amended in prior NDAAs; the House codified text shows these certification and oversight mechanics remain active as of the 2025 preliminary code [2].
3. Where the services train now: bases and purpose‑built sites
Military and service sources show urban‑operations training mostly occurs at dedicated ranges, installations and constructed urban training sites — not by staging live force maneuvers in populated city neighborhoods. Proposals and doctrinal initiatives (for example, an urban‑warfare school proposal and modernizing training publications) reveal the services are pursuing larger, more realistic training centers on military property to replicate complex urban terrain [5]. The Army’s public reporting on training regulation changes and the Marine Corps’ publicized exercises in Arizona and Southern California illustrate the services conduct highly realistic urban training within controlled environments [3] [6].
4. Policy changes, internal regulations and commander discretion
Service regulatory changes affect what training is mandatory and how commanders plan readiness. The Army updated Regulation 350‑1 in 2025 to streamline mandatory tasks and give commanders more discretion over some training elements; reporting shows this can change which topics receive emphasis in unit training cycles [3] [7]. That internal discretion shapes how much emphasis an individual unit places on urban‑operations tasks, though it does not remove statutory or constitutional limits on domestic employment of forces (not found in current reporting).
5. Political proposals vs. legal reality: courts, Congress and public scrutiny
Political proposals to put active troops into U.S. neighborhoods for live training — highlighted in 2025 remarks by then‑President and ensuing coverage — generated immediate legal and civil‑military concern because they would test longstanding boundaries between military and civilian policing [1]. Military.com and other outlets pointed out such ideas “would likely face immediate legal challenges,” and subsequent court actions in 2025 blocking law‑enforcement‑style deployments show how judges and civil litigants can constrain executive action [1] [4].
6. Areas not covered or needing more reporting
Available sources do not mention a comprehensive list of state laws governing National Guard training under state active duty, nor do they detail specific local permit regimes for non‑military government actors that might host or deny military‑style training in municipal property (not found in current reporting). Also, the provided sources do not supply the full statutory text of Posse Comitatus or every DoD instruction that governs domestic employment of forces; readers should consult the U.S. Code, DoD directives, and recent court opinions for verbatim legal language and case law (not found in current reporting).
7. Bottom line for policymakers and the public
Congressional oversight statutes like 10 U.S.C. §2859 constrain how the Pentagon builds urban‑training infrastructure and require a formal strategy and certification for such construction [2]. At the same time, longstanding limits on using federal forces in a law‑enforcement role — underscored by 2025 coverage and court decisions — mean proposals to use actual U.S. neighborhoods as live training grounds face legal barriers and judicial scrutiny [2] [1] [4].