Homicide Decline, Trumps Guard Deployments, and the 2026 City Safety Rankings

In 2025, the United States saw a dramatic 21 % drop in homicide incidents compared with 2024—a single‑year decline that eclipses every other in the country’s long history. According to national crime statistics, the 2025 homicide rate may be the lowest since 1900.

Yet the headline‑grabbing violence trend didn’t keep the nation from feeling uneasy. In the summer of 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order declaring a “crime emergency” in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and sent National Guard troops to both cities. The order cited rising violent crime and homelessness as justification. A federal judge, however, ruled the deployments illegal in September 2025, and a separate court order later halted the Guard’s presence in Washington, D.C.

The cities that drew the President’s attention don’t always match the places that independent analysts flag as most dangerous. In 2026, Stacker Media released a list of the ten most hazardous U.S. cities, drawing on WalletHub’s 100‑point safety scale. WalletHub evaluates 182 cities across three weighted categories:

1. Home and community safety – murders, assaults, and drug‑poisoning deaths. 2. Natural‑disaster risk – earthquakes and wildfires. 3. Financial safety – unemployment, uninsured rates, and fraud.

The top ten cities earned safety scores between 39.74 and 31.57. Washington, D.C. sits at 11th on the overall list, despite boasting the lowest violent‑crime rate in more than three decades. Los Angeles falls far outside the top ten, ranked 27th.

Trump’s focus on Baltimore, Memphis, and New Orleans—cities that appear on WalletHub’s list—highlights the disconnect between federal action and independent crime data. While the President has declared those cities “dangerous,” WalletHub’s methodology places them among the ten most hazardous U.S. cities, though the exact rankings are not disclosed in the source.

The list also names Chicago and New York City, both of which Trump has labeled dangerous. Chicago, for instance, has been dubbed by the President as “the most dangerous city in the world,” yet it does not appear in WalletHub’s top ten.

WalletHub safety scores for the ten cities: - 39.74 – Home & community safety rank 176, natural‑disaster risk rank 87, financial safety rank 150. - 39.39 – Home & community safety rank 176, natural‑disaster risk rank 87, financial safety rank 150. - 38.57 – Home & community safety rank 173, natural‑disaster risk rank 166, financial safety rank 156. - 38.10 – Home & community safety rank 165, natural‑disaster risk rank 182, financial safety rank 161. - 37.28 – Home & community safety rank 166, natural‑disaster risk rank 174, financial safety rank 178. - 36.69 – Home & community safety rank 180, natural‑disaster risk rank 61, financial safety rank 166. - 36.38 – Home & community safety rank 177, natural‑disaster risk rank 100, financial safety rank 181. - 33.74 – Home & community safety rank 181, natural‑disaster risk rank 136, financial safety rank 147. - 33.71 – Home & community safety rank 179, natural‑disaster risk rank 101, financial safety rank 182. - 31.57 – Home & community safety rank 182, natural‑disaster risk rank 71, financial safety rank 177.

These figures combine crime rates, disaster exposure, and economic vulnerability into a single snapshot. The methodology is publicly available on WalletHub’s website, and the rankings are refreshed each year.

The federal court’s decision to deem the National Guard deployments illegal underscores the limits of executive power in domestic law enforcement. The judge ruled that the deployments violated the Constitution’s constraints on federal intervention in state and local policing.

Together, the 2025 homicide decline, Trump‑initiated guard deployments, and WalletHub’s 2026 safety rankings paint a complex portrait of U.S. public safety. While overall violent crime is falling, federal actions and independent assessments of danger do not always align. The next steps involve monitoring the legal status of the Guard’s presence in Washington, D.C., and determining whether the federal government will recalibrate its strategy for the cities flagged by independent rankings.

The information in this article is based on public data from 2025 and 2026, including national crime statistics, court rulings, and WalletHub’s 2026 city safety rankings.