Latest news with #DCNationalGuard
The Herald Scotland
5 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
State sends National Guard members to Washington at Trump team's request
Governor Patrick Morrisey said in a post on Saturday on X that he was deploying '300-400 skilled personnel' from the West Virginia National Guard to support Mr Trump's 'initiative to make DC safe and beautiful'. Mr Morrisey said the step reflects 'our commitment to a strong and secure America'. They will arrive in the District of Columbia along with equipment and specialised training services, his office said in a statement. 'West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation's capital,' Mr Morrisey said. 'The men and women of our National Guard represent the best of our state, and this mission reflects our shared commitment to a strong and secure America.' The move comes as federal agents and National Guard troops have begun to appear across the heavily Democratic city after Mr Trump's executive order on Monday federalising local police forces and activating about 800 DC National Guard troops for his plan. Maj Gen James Seward, West Virginia's adjutant general, said in a statement that members of the state's National Guard 'stand ready to support our partners in the National Capital Region' and that the Guard's 'unique capabilities and preparedness make it an invaluable partner in this important undertaking.' Federal agents have appeared in some of the city's most highly trafficked neighbourhoods, garnering praise, pushback and alarm from local residents and leaders across the country. City leaders, who are obliged to co-operate with the president's order under the federal laws that direct the district's local governance, have sought to work with the administration though have bristled at the scope of the president's takeover. On Friday the administration reversed course on an order that aimed to place the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as an 'emergency police commissioner' after the district's top lawyer sued to contest. US Attorney General Pam Bondi (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) After a court hearing, Mr Trump's attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued a memo that directed the Metropolitan Police Department to co-operate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law. District officials say they are evaluating how to best comply. In his order Monday, Mr Trump declared an emergency because of the 'city government's failure to maintain public order'. He said that impeded the 'federal government's ability to operate efficiently to address the nation's broader interests without fear of our workers being subjected to rampant violence.' In a letter to city residents, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, wrote that 'our limited self-government has never faced the type of test we are facing right now'. She added that if Washingtonians stick together, 'we will show the entire nation what it looks like to fight for American democracy – even when we don't have full access to it'. Police watch as activists carrying signs march to the White House to protest against Donald Trump's federal takeover of policing of the District of Columbia (Alex Brandon/AP) A protest against Mr Trump's intervention drew scores of people to Dupont Circle on Saturday afternoon before a march to the White House, about one and a half miles away. Demonstrators assembled behind a banner that said 'No fascist takeover of DC' and some in the crowd held signs that said 'No military occupation'. Mr Trump was at his Virginia golf club after Friday's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Wants to ‘Take Back' D.C., but the Federal Government Already Controls Much of It
The federal government is everywhere in the District of Columbia — it owns golf courses, public parks, waterfronts, sidewalks, road medians and those little plots of land inside the city's famous traffic circles. Its hand is in the city's finances, its courtrooms and its schools. It watches over every law the city passes and every local dollar it spends. This omnipresence — even before the president took over the city's police department and deployed the D.C. National Guard this week — has long made many basic aspects of life in Washington harder for local officials to manage. And now President Trump and his allies in Congress are hammering the District for not managing it all better. Mr. Trump described the capital as a wasteland and vowed a crackdown on crime. 'This is Liberation Day in D.C.,' the president said on Monday, announcing plans to rescue the city from bloodthirsty criminals, roving youth, violent gangs and homeless people. 'We're going to take our capital back.' But in fact, the capital has in many ways long been controlled — in mundane details and with sweeping consequences, much of it touching criminal justice and quality of life — by the federal government. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
After D.C., Trump wants to ‘takeover' New York and Chicago. Can he?
Donald Trump completed his goal of 'sending in the troops' this week as he announced that the D.C. National Guard would be mobilized to fight crime in the District of Columbia, where federal officials would also be taking over the local police force. But will he stop there, or will other cities be next? After reportedly spending months debating how best to achieve the humiliation and cowing of a liberal-run urban center, the president's second go at it appears on track for greater success. Trump previously ordered National Guard troops to begin protection duties in Los Angeles and the surrounding area following unrest in January over ICE deportation raids. That deployment, once thousands of troops, is now down to less than 300 as federal officials squabble with local leaders in the courts over whether the whole thing was a political stunt. That dynamic playing out on the West Coast is a sign that Trump will likely be less successful at duplicating his takeover of the nation's capital in blue states around the U.S., even as he pledged to do so during his Monday press conference at the White House. "We're not going to lose our cities over this. This will go further. We're starting very strongly with D.C., and we're going to clean it up real quick," Trump told reporters. "We're going to take back our capital. And then we'll look at other cities also. But other cities are studying what we're doing." In D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has meekly pushed back against the image of her city being 'war-torn' and drug-infested as being shared by the White House. Aside from refusing to sign on to that characterization, she's painstakingly avoided direct confrontation with Trump, clearly fearful that the president (with the backing of a GOP House and Senate) could pursue a full federalization of D.C. city government by asking Congress to revoke the Home Rule Act. The reality is simple: Trump can't deputize federal troops, including state National Guard detachments, to conduct crime-control activities without the cooperation of state leaders and some kind of actual rationalization for doing so. Pointing at crime trends and graphs won't cut it. Especially in states with uncooperative leaders, his deployment of National Guard troops is limited to his administration's ability to come up with rationalizations for their use; in California, Guardsmen were dispatched in response to large-scale protests around federal buildings housing detained undocumented immigrants. In Chicago, Baltimore, New York and other cities, Trump lacks even the minimal standards that the administration would need to defend such deployments. So what can Trump do? The answer may still end up being more than Democratic state and local leaders would like to see from the White House. This week, federal attorneys battled with California in court over whether National Guard troops deployed to the state in June overstepped their constitutional authority by providing support to ICE agents during raids and other enforcement actions, where National Guard troops served to protect law enforcement personnel but were directed not to participate directly in arrests of migrants. The director of the Los Angeles field office testified that the support provided by the Guard on these raids was critical for preventing assaults against officers: "We still had officer assault situations, but they did reduce drastically." That's the loophole Trump and his team will use, should it be upheld as legal. Democratic state leaders can force the Guard to operate under solely federal authority, known as 'Title 10,' which bars troops from performing law enforcement activities and forces them to operate solely with federal funding and oversight. In California's case, this was used; and it severely restricted the usage of the Guard to support roles for enforcement operations. But Trump simply could use further demonstrations against ICE agents as the impetus for launching similar operations in Democrat-run cities such as Chicago or New York. The president needs no additional authority to ramp up immigration raids in those areas, and now has the funding to do it, thanks to the GOP's budget reconciliation package containing money for tens of thousands of new ICE agents and detention centers. It's the question of whether he would be able to sustain a supporting guardsman presence for any extended amount of time, or whether court challenges in those states would force him to close up shop that's still uncertain. Trump could find more leeway in red states, where state governors could cooperate with the Trump administration and change the game. If Guardsmen were activated under 'Title 32' authority, which shares oversight and funding for the deployment between state and federal officials, those deployed troops would not be subject to the same restrictions on carrying out law enforcement activities. It was under this authority that the president is calling in the Guard to Washington D.C., which falls constitutionally under federal jurisdiction and likely can't block the president from wielding that power. Federal officials haven't said that National Guard troops in D.C. will directly conduct law enforcement operations, however. The Guard is currently slated to provide support roles to assist the newly federalized Metropolitan Police Department, the city's primary law enforcement agency. It's a sign that even under the broadest authority Trump is willing to grant U.S. troops operating on American soil, the White House is still hesitant to lean into the full militarization of American cities. As midterm season approaches, Democratic state leaders can likely breathe a sigh of relief knowing that blue states remain shielded from Trump's ambitions of bringing local police forces under his control, and from seeing troops on city streets putting down dissent or conducting law enforcement in an attempt to smear the president's critics as pro-crime. Voters in red states, however, could be in for a ride if the president decides that leaning into immigration raids is his party's ticket to protecting congressional majorities next year. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
National Guard troops on the streets of DC to fight what Trump calls ‘out of control' crime in the nation's capital
Members of the District of Columbia National Guard began their first night of operations in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday as part of President Donald Trump's anti-crime crackdown in the nation's capital. Troops were seen leaving the D.C. Armory earlier Tuesday and by the evening a group of about a dozen Guard personnel stood with five parked military Humvee trucks near the Washington Monument before later departing for an unknown location. 'We just did a presence patrol to be amongst the people, to be seen,' Master Sgt. Cory Boroff, one of the Guard troops near the Monument, told The New York Times. 'Of the people, for the people in D.C.,' he added. Officials have not disclosed the exact number of troops deployed to the streets on Tuesday as part of the president's decision, announced on Monday, to call 800 Guard personnel to the capital to fight what he has described as rampant violent crime in Washington. Homicide and property crime figures are down compared with the same period in 2024, according to municipal data, with violent crime at a 30-year low following a spike in 2023. The Independent has contacted the D.C. Guard and the White House for comment on the nature and extent of their operations so far. More troops are expected to continue arriving throughout the week. Among the 800 called to Washington, between 100 and 200 will serve 'supporting law enforcement' the Defense Department said in a statement on Monday. The troops have been activated under Title 32, which allows them to make arrests and avoid running afoul of the general prohibition on the military being involved in domestic law enforcement. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the troops would not be involved in arrests. "Under Title 32, which is the authorization they'll be using, they have broad latitude.' he told Fox News on Monday. 'But they're not going to be involved in law enforcement functions." The deployment is expected to last through September 25, according to a memo obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. The troops join an even larger contingent of federal and federalized law enforcement sweeping the capital as part of what the administration is calling the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The task force involves some 500 federal agents from agencies including the FBI, DEA, and Park Police, as well as hundreds more Washington, D.C. police officers the administration has put under federal control for the next 30 days under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the combined force numbered 850 people on the streets on Monday night. The agents and officers arrested 23 people overnight Monday, for charges including homicide, drunk driving, gun, drug crimes and subway fare evasion. FBI Director Kash Patel said on X on Tuesday that the FBI was involved in nearly half of the Monday arrests, including arrests for unlawful gun possession, outstanding DUI warrants, and a violation of a restraining order. The president has threatened to bring similar National Guard deployments to other Democrat-led cities. 'This will go further,' he said announcing his Washington operation on Monday, naming other large Democrat-led cities such as New York, Oakland, and Baltimore. But Trump has few clear legal routes to doing so. To send the Guard to Los Angeles over the summer, the administration used a provision for times of rebellion, invasion, or a breakdown in federal law enforcement, which the White House said had occurred amid protests against immigration raids. The Trump administration's Washington operation has benefited from the president's special authorities over the non-state District of Columbia. Democratic leaders on Trump's punch list have said they will challenge any attempt to send in the Guard, just as California is doing in federal court. Trump 'has absolutely no right and no legal ability to send troops into the city of Chicago, and so I reject that notion,' Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said on Tuesday. 'You've seen that he doesn't follow the law. I have talked about the fact that the Nazis in Germany in the 30s tore down a constitutional republic in just 53 days,' he added. 'It does not take much, frankly, and we have a president who seems hell-bent on doing just that.'
CNN
3 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
White House: More National Guard Troops To Appear In DC Tonight - Laura Coates Live - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
White House: More National Guard Troops To Appear In DC Tonight Laura Coates Live 46 mins The DC National Guard began appearing in the nation's capital after President Donald Trump announced he is deploying guard troops and placing Washington, DC's police department 'under direct federal control,' citing a public safety emergency after an assault on a former government worker.
