Plans for mobilization of National Guard soldiers in Washington, D.C. by the U.S. military is underway as part of a broader attempt by President Trump to address crime rates in the city. Formal deployment orders had not been signed by the President as of Monday morning though. The President’s impending announcement at a White House press briefing would likely detail the deployment of potentially several hundred local National Guard members to support the city’s police officers.
Early Monday provided no additional information regarding President Trump’s decision. The President’s crackdown is an attempt to control what he considers escalating crimes in Washington, D.C., despite crime rates generally showing a decreasing trend. He has previously voiced vociferous opinions indicating the city’s situation being completely unmanageable, even hinting at potential federal intervention.
Plans for this anticipated activation of National Guard members, reported earlier by Reuters, suggest that they would not be given arrest authorities. Instead, their role would broadly involve backing local law enforcement agencies, by bearing some workload or freeing the enforcement officials for regular patrol activities.
Alongside this move, the Trump administration has strategies to temporarily assign 120 F.B.I agents in the District of Columbia to night patrol duties. This is part of his broader efforts to clamp down on city crime. The majority of these agents will temporarily sideline their typical roles at the local F.B.I. field offices.
Looking comparatively, this decision follows a similar deployment scenario earlier in the summer, where about 5,000 National Guard soldiers were summoned to Los Angeles. Those soldiers were tasked with controlling protests set off by immigration raids, as well as providing security to the federal agents involved in conducting the raids.
In the case of Los Angeles, most of the National Guard soldiers have since been retracted, leaving only about 250 still deployed. The similarities in deployment strategies underline the President’s approach to using the National Guard to control situations he considers out of hand within various cities.
Throughout his first tenure, President Trump utilized National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel to counter peaceful demonstrations during the Black Lives Matter protests following the police-inflicted death of George Floyd in 2020. The deployment of National Guard troops formed a central part of his strategy for maintaining law and order.
The deployment dynamics differ notably between Washington, D.C. and other states. Contrary to a state governor, the District of Columbia does not hold command over its National Guard. Such authority gives the President ample freedom to decide how to utilize these troops.
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