By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, President Donald Trump has openly mused about sending troops to some of the nation’s most Democratic cities — including Chicago and Baltimore — claiming they are needed to crack down on crime.

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The threats to expand a federal intervention have legal experts and some military officials raising concerns that Trump is considering novel ways to use National Guard troops in American cities that could set up conflicts not seen since the civil rights era.

Though most violent crime has fallen in recent years in the cities Trump has called out, the Republican president said Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “should be calling me, and he should be saying, ‘Can you send over the troops please?’ It’s out of control.”

Whether Trump can repeat what he’s done in LA and the nation’s capital — call up the National Guard and have it assist a surge of federal law enforcement and immigration officers — is an open question and likely to become a point of contention should he press forward.

Here’s a look at how Trump has used troops in U.S. cities, what the law allows and what could come next:

How Trump already has used the National Guard

Trump first deployed troops to Los Angeles in early June over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections by putting the California National Guard under federal jurisdiction, known as Title 10, to protect federal property from protests over immigration raids.

Besides 4,000 Guard members, Trump later sent 700 active duty Marines, and California sued over the intervention. The Guard went on to help protect officers during immigration arrests.

While Trump pushed the limits of the law, the lawsuit centers on whether the president was allowed to use the Guard to closely shadow federal law enforcement and whether that runs afoul of the prohibition on using the military as law enforcement, known as the Posse Comitatus Act, said Todd Huntley, director of the National Security Law Program at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Meanwhile, the unique status of the District of Columbia National Guard — Trump is their commander in chief — means he has been able to use it for everything from armed patrols to trash cleanup without any legal issues. Because it is on state and not federal orders, legal restrictions on law enforcement don’t come into effect.

“Where we have a big question mark” is whether “the governor of a state has to consent to the sending of troops to his state,” said Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate.

How this could play out in Chicago and other cities

The Trump administration is planning to surge officers to the nation’s third-largest city for an immigration crackdown, two U.S. officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security asked Naval Station Great Lakes outside Chicago for support on immigration operations, including with facilities and logistics, the base said this week. The Illinois National Guard and the base said they had not received requests regarding a mobilization of troops to Chicago.

If Trump wants the freedom to use the National Guard as he pleases in Chicago, the easiest legal path is to invoke the Insurrection Act — a vaguely worded 1792 law that allows the president to deploy federal troops inside the U.S. to conduct law enforcement, an exception to the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act.

The law offers sweeping powers to the president, envisioning armed conflict within the United States.

“The orders would be given by him … and the governor of the receiving state would not have a say in whether he allows them into the state or not or allows them to conduct a mission in the state,” Huntley said.

However, Huntley calls this “the nuclear option.”

A D.C. National Guard official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said invoking the Insurrection Act over a broad topic like crime could allow the Guard to be deployed indefinitely.

Another possibility is Trump deploying the D.C. Guard, which he commands, to another state, the official said.

If the D.C. Guard is put on federal orders — something Trump has the power to do — it could lead to some rare situations, including federalized D.C. Guardsmen sent to another state that in turn could activate its own Guard as a counter, Huntley said.

The possibility is not without precedent.

“The resolution of that could be basically what we saw in Alabama during the civil rights era. To take the ability of that state governor of using state National Guard forces away, the president could simply federalize them,” Huntley said.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard as part of the now-famous standoff with Gov. George Wallace, who refused to step aside and allow Black students to integrate the University of Alabama. Wallace eventually relented.

Members of the Louisiana National Guard patrol Union Station, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

How Trump’s new executive order on the National Guard affects what happens next

In an executive order signed Monday, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to create “a specialized unit” within the D.C. Guard “dedicated to ensuring public safety and order.”

He also directed Hegseth to ensure every state’s Guard is ready to assist federal and local law enforcement in “quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order” when needed. It also calls for each to have units “reasonably available for rapid mobilization.”

The Pentagon has not given more details of what Trump’s order will mean for the National Guard. A defense official confirmed that Hegseth’s office was aware of the order and that they were reviewing it and its specific requirements.

All state Guards already have a “reaction force” that is aimed at responding to a wide variety of incidents with an initial force of 75-125 personnel within eight hours and a follow-on force of up to 375 personnel within 24 hours, according to a National Guard fact sheet.

And the D.C. National Guard already has a unit that is made up entirely of soldiers trained as military police.

By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California bookmaker who took thousands of sports bets from the former interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani was sentenced to just over a year in prison Friday.

Mathew Bowyer, now 50, had pleaded guilty a year ago to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison.

He will later be subjected to two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, which his lawyer said he’s already paid.

“The bottom line is, I am remorseful. I have made many poor choices in my life,” Bowyer told the court before sentencing, his voice trembling.

Federal prosecutors wanted Bowyer sentenced to 15 months in prison for running the scheme that placed hundreds of millions of dollars in bets and netted thousands of dollars each day. They said Bowyer could have faced a longer sentence but shouldn’t thanks to his significant assistance in their investigations.

The prosecutor declined to comment after Friday’s hearing.

U.S. District Judge John W. Holcomb said the sentence could have been longer, but both the government and Bowyer’s lawyer sought reductions.

Holcomb said he was impressed by Bowyer’s recent efforts to assist gambling addicts and the overwhelming support shown by Bowyer’s family and friends, more than a dozen who were in the courtroom Friday, but said he felt some prison time was necessary due to the tax crime.

“Despite the significant mitigation, there are consequences for committing these crimes,” Holcomb said.

Diane Bass, Bowyer’s attorney, wanted her client to be spared prison time entirely because of his “extraordinary acceptance of responsibility.” In a letter to the court, the father of five from San Juan Capistrano, California, said he began gambling as a teen by playing poker and betting on video games, and it later spiraled out of control.

“It is so easy to gamble everything away and fall into despair,” Bowyer wrote. “I am very sorry and embarrassed that I facilitated such dangerous risk-taking.”

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The case against Bowyer is part of a broader federal probe into illegal sports gambling that led to the arrest of Ohtani’s former Japanese language interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, who is currently serving a nearly five-year sentence for bank and tax fraud after stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player.

Authorities said Bowyer ran an illegal gambling business for at least five years in Southern California and Las Vegas and took wagers from more than 700 bettors including Mizuhara, who had long worked with Ohtani and was regularly seen by his side.

While Mizuhara’s winnings totaled over $142 million, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s, his losing bets were around $183 million — a net loss of nearly $41 million. Investigators said Mizhuara wagered on sports other than baseball. Authorities said Ohtani was a victim in the case.

Bowyer cooperated with investigators in their prosecution of Mizuhara and in a case against the head of a large sports gambling business, federal prosecutors wrote in court filings. They said his “significant, timely, and credible” assistance helped authorities obtain two separate convictions.

Since then, Bowyer has been addressing his own gambling addiction and helping others overcome theirs, Bass wrote in court filings. He has also repaid $1.6 million in taxes, she said.

Operating an unlicensed betting business is a federal crime. Sports gambling is illegal in California, while most states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.

Sports-betting scandals have made headlines in recent years, including one that led Major League Baseball to ban a player for life last year for the first time since Pete Rose was barred in 1989.

The league’s gambling policy prohibits players and team employees from wagering on baseball, even legally. MLB also bans betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

The league last year banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano and suspended four other players for betting on baseball legally. Marcano became the first active player in a century banned for life because of gambling.

Rose, whose playing days were already over, agreed to his ban in 1989 after an investigation found that he had placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing for and managing the team.

In Nevada, the case against Bowyer led gaming regulators to issue a $10.5 million fine against the Resorts World Casino on the Las Vegas strip. It was the second-largest fine handed down by the state’s gaming commission and settled a complaint accusing the casino of welcoming people with ties to illegal bookmaking.

By REBECCA SANTANA and ELLIOT SPAGAT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration plans to surge officers to Chicago for an immigration crackdown in its latest move to expand the federal law enforcement presence in major Democratic-run cities, according to two U.S. officials.

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The operation in the country’s third-largest city is expected to last about 30 days and could start as early as Sept. 5, a Department of Homeland Security official told The Associated Press on Friday. Another U.S. official said the timing for what could be a sustained immigration enforcement effort resembling this summer’s operations in Los Angeles is awaiting final approval.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not been made public.

Chicago is home to a large immigrant population, and both the city and the state of Illinois have some of the country’s strongest rules against cooperating with federal government immigration enforcement efforts. That has often put the city and the state at odds with Trump’s administration as it tries to carry out his mass deportation agenda.

The Trump administration asked the military this week for use of the Naval Station Great Lakes, north of Chicago, to support immigration enforcement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and other federal agencies would take part in the planned Chicago operation, according to the federal officials who spoke to The Associated Press. Unlike the recent federal takeover of policing in Washington, it’s is not expected to rely on the National Guard or military and is focused exclusively on immigration instead of being cast as part of a broad campaign against crime.

The Republican administration is likely to face resistance to any operation from the region’s top Democratic officials, as it has in California from Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, like Newsom, has been trading barbs with Trump and his allies.

A person checks a cell phone while waiting to talk to representatives during an ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, hiring fair Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Pritzker said this week that Chicago doesn’t want military intervention to fight crime. On Friday, the Democrat noted that ICE is a civilian law enforcement agency and can legally operate in the city, “but we don’t appreciate when they mistreat our residents, many of whom have been here for decades.”

“We now have a president and a federal government that’s going after them, hunting people down and disappearing them off the streets,” Pritzker said after a school visit in the city’s south suburbs. “Men with masks are grabbing people off the streets and taking them away. That’s just shameful.”

The Department of Homeland Security said this week that it has made 5,000 immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area since launching a sustained crackdown in the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area June 6. Authorities are undeterred by a temporary court order prohibiting racial profiling in Los Angeles, which the administration has challenged before the Supreme Court.

“Make no mistake: If you are here illegally, we will find you, arrest you and send you back. This is just the beginning,” Secretary Kristi Noem said when announcing the arrest milestone in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles operation has been marked by large, lightning-quick shows of force by heavily armed, masked agents in unmarked cars and civilian dress, often at Home Depots and car washes. The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles said this week that 15% of Mexican citizens arrested so far work in construction followed by car washes at 13%, based on hundreds of interviews it has conducted.

Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writer John O’Connor contributed from Springfield, Ill.