Trump’s Policing Executive Order – What Does It Really Mean?
On April 28, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Strengthening and Unleashing American Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” aiming to empower hyper-militarized policing while shielding police departments and individual officers from any form of accountability.
The Executive Order does nothing to make people safer. In fact, the EO makes communities unsafe by trying to criminalize holding police officers accountable, makes the police more dangerous by training police to be more aggressive, giving protection and legal cover to violent police officers, and militarizing local and state forces. These actions also take away the autonomy of local and state governments to address public safety concerns based on the unique and individual needs and characteristics of each community. Excerpts from several of the initiatives in the EO are explained below:
Legal Defense of Law Enforcement Officers
The administration will:
- Indemnify police officers accused of violating the law.
- When police officers are sued for misconduct, the federal government will pay for that police officer’s legal representation using tax payer dollars or law firm pro bono.
- “Surge resources to officers in need.”
Translation: Your local police departments will be given more and more dangerous weapons, but no funding for other programs that impact public safety like mental healthcare or diversion programs.
Empowering State and Local Law Enforcement
The Attorney General [and agencies] shall take all appropriate action to maximize the use of Federal resources to:
(i) provide new best practices to State and local law enforcement to aggressively police communities against all crimes…
(iv) strengthen and expand legal protections for law enforcement officers;
(vi) promote investment in the security and capacity of prisons…
Translation: The federal government wants to train your state and local law enforcement to be more aggressive, reduce the legal mechanisms you have to hold police accountable for misconduct, and provide financial and legal support to officers accused of violating your rights. The federal government will invest more in prisons, despite the U.S. already having the highest incarceration rate of any independent democracy on Earth.
Empowering State and Local Law Enforcement
“Within 60 days…the Attorney General shall review all ongoing Federal consent decrees, out-of-court agreements, and post-judgment orders to which a State or local law enforcement agency is a party and modify, rescind, or move to conclude…”
Translation: In all cases where the federal government previously successfully alleged unconstitutional policing, the Attorney General will attempt to modify or terminate the monitoring of law enforcement agencies – like the Biden DOJ Minneapolis and Louisville consent decrees.
Using National Security Assets for Law and Order
“Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense… shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement…”
Translation: The Administration wants to militarize your local police force. This could mean assigning federal law enforcement officers from Defense, Homeland Security and/or ICE to assist local police forces. It could also potentially mean that local police will be trained for and provided with military weapons and surveillance technology combat instead of civilian policing, and military personnel may be deployed alongside your local law enforcement officers.
Holding State and Local Officials Accountable
“The Attorney General shall… prioritize prosecution of any applicable violations of Federal criminal law with respect to State and local jurisdictions whose officials:
(a) willfully and unlawfully direct the obstruction of criminal law, including by directly and unlawfully prohibiting law enforcement officers from carrying out duties necessary for public safety and law enforcement; or
(b) unlawfully engage in discrimination or civil-rights violations under the guise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives that restrict law enforcement activity or endanger citizens.”
Translation: This is a scare tactic by the Trump Administration to stop local officials from enacting police accountability measures by threatening them with unknown and vague violations of the law. This section attempts to criminalize efforts by local or state governments to hold police accountable. The administration wants to undermine your local or state government’s authority and autonomy to implement police accountability measures, or explore alternatives to policing for public safety.
Challenges to our movement for police accountability and safe communities
The Center for Constitutional Rights has been a part of the abolitionist and police accountability movement for decades, and this EO is trying to dismantle the protections and accountability mechanisms activists have fought for.
A key aim of this EO is to scare both public officials and grassroots activists and organizers into silence. It continues the racist and dangerous Trumpian rhetoric of “unleashing” police against supposed “DEI” villains - when the policing tactics against Black and Latinx people in cities across the country have been incredibly abusive for decades. Especially in NYC, the Adams administration continues to create new aggressive police units. CCR and our allies will continue working to ensure our communities have real safety beyond aggressive and racist policing.
Ultimately, this EO only succeeds in putting our communities in more danger: it reduces the mechanisms we have to hold police accountable, all while attempting to strip local and state governments—and by extension, the constituents they are meant to protect—of their ability to expose racist and unconstitutional policing and solve their own public safety problems.