Who has legal authority to deploy the National Guard during domestic unrest?

1. Governors: first responders with default command

By default, governors command their state National Guard and can order them into service to respond to civil unrest, disasters, or emergencies; when serving under state authority (commonly “Title 32” or state active duty), Guard troops may perform law‑enforcement type functions that federal forces normally may not ^{[1] [5] [3]}.

2. The president: statutory power to federalize in extreme cases

The president’s legal ability to deploy Guard forces across state lines or use them as federal troops hinges on federal statutes—most notably the Insurrection Act and related provisions in Title 10—which authorize federalization when there is insurrection, invasion, or when the president finds regular forces insufficient to enforce federal law ^{[2] [6] [7]}.

3. How federalization changes the Guard’s role and limits

Once federalized under Title 10, Guard personnel are treated as federal armed forces and generally are subject to the Posse Comitatus prohibition on domestic law enforcement unless the Insurrection Act or another statute expressly authorizes law‑enforcement functions ^{[3] [8]}. That distinction—state control versus federal service—is the core legal line that transforms who can order, control, and lawfully employ the Guard in policing roles ^{[1] [9]}.

4. The Insurrection Act: the main statutory trigger—and controversy

The Insurrection Act permits the president to “call forth” forces to suppress insurrection or enforce federal law when state authorities cannot or will not do so, but the Act’s breadth, historical origins, and sparse modern updating make it controversial and subject to judicial and scholarly scrutiny about its proper limits ^{[2] [10] [8]}.

5. Title 10, §12406 and interpretive disputes

Administrations have sometimes relied on less‑familiar Title 10 provisions—such as §12406—to federalize National Guard troops in contested circumstances; legal scholars, courts, and critics dispute whether that statute or executive memoranda can substitute for the Insurrection Act’s procedures or whether such uses exceed presidential authority ^{[7] [8] [11]}.

6. Title 32 and the hybrid option: federal funding, state control

Section 502 of Title 32 allows certain federally funded Guard activities while keeping units under state control, creating a hybrid status often used for homeland‑defense missions and disaster response; its use in civil‑unrest contexts has prompted debate about whether it can be stretched into broad federal direction without violating statutory schemes or constitutional boundaries ^{[5] [6]}.

7. Washington, D.C. and other special cases

Because D.C. is not a state, the federal government exercises unusual authority over the D.C. National Guard, permitting presidential influence in ways that would be unlawful for a nonconsenting state; out‑of‑state Guard reinforcements or cross‑jurisdictional moves into D.C. have raised legal questions distinct from state deployments ^{[12] [13]}.

8. Legal constraints, courts, and political context

The Posse Comitatus Act and related doctrines limit domestic military policing absent explicit congressional authorization, and recent deployments have spawned lawsuits and injunctions testing whether presidential actions complied with those statutes—illustrating that deployment authority is not purely political will but a contested legal calculus enforceable in court ^{[3] [6] [14]}.

9. Competing interpretations and hidden agendas

Scholars and civil‑liberties groups warn that broad executive readings of federal statutes enable dangerous incursions of military power into civilian life, while military and administration defenders argue the president needs flexible tools to protect federal property and personnel; both positions can be read through political lenses that favor stronger federal control or stronger state autonomy ^{[8] [4] [12]}.

10. Bottom line: who legally deploys the Guard in unrest

Practically and legally, governors deploy their state Guard as the primary authority; the president can federalize Guard units and deploy them nationally in narrow, legally defined circumstances—principally under the Insurrection Act and specific Title 10 provisions—subject to Posse Comitatus constraints, Title 32 nuances, and judicial review ^{[1] [2] [3] [7]}.