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A July 2025 executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump aims to “institutionalize anyone disabled.”
A July 2025 order does “encourage” civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who “pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.” However …
… The order does not, broadly speaking, aim to commit “anyone disabled” to institutions as many posts claimed but, rather, those who have mental illness and are living on the streets who “cannot care for themselves.”
Following U.S. President Donald Trump’s signing of a July 2025 executive order (archived), titled, “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” people claimed that the order aimed to “institutionalize anyone disabled,” as one X post (archived) with more than 1.1 million views said, as of this writing:
(X user @John_Beckham14)
Related claims also spread to other platforms, including Facebook (archived) and Reddit (archived).
The claim is based on a real executive order issued on July 24, 2025, that does lay the groundwork to forcibly institutionalize homeless individuals, but the claim that it aims to “institutionalize anyone disabled” is an exaggeration.
“Shifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order,” ithe order read. Civil commitment is the state-sponsored legal process of forcibly admitting someone into a treatment facility, typically used for individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. The order more specifically includes those who “are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time.” It directs select Cabinet members to:
Seek, in appropriate cases, the reversal of Federal or State judicial precedents and the termination of consent decrees that impede the United States’ policy of encouraging civil commitment of individuals with mental illness who pose risks to themselves or the public or are living on the streets and cannot care for themselves in appropriate facilities for appropriate periods of time …
In other words, the order broadly aims to make it easier for the government to commit homeless individuals to treatment facilities against their will.
Advocacy groups quickly raised “grave” concerns regarding the order. “Unfortunately, yesterday’s order concerningly focuses broadly on institutionalization and not on real solutions that we know work in helping people lead better lives,” The National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) said in a statement.
Sources
‘Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets’. The White House, 24 Jul. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/.
‘Involuntary Civil Commitment’. LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/involuntary_civil_commitment. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.
‘NAMI Statement on Executive Order Targeting Homelessness and Criminalizing Mental Illness’. National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), https://www.nami.org/press-releases/nami-statement-on-executive-order-targeting-homelessness-and-criminalizing-mental-illness/. Accessed 28 Aug. 2025.
Thompson, Christie. ‘Trump Wants to Force Unhoused People into Hospitals. “It’s Entirely Misguided.”‘ The Marshall Project, 28 Jul. 2025, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/07/28/trump-order-mental-health-homeless.
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Taija PerryCook
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