Discussions are underway for the U.S. military to mobilize National Guard personnel in Washington D.C., as part of a strategy by President Trump to curtail the city’s unlawful activities. As of the pre-dawn hours of Monday, the President has yet to officially sanction any deployment directives. However, it is anticipated that an upcoming presidential press conference at the White House will declare that a contingent, potentially in the hundreds, of National Guard members from the District of Columbia will be designated to aid the capital’s law enforcement personnel. Further specifics were not disclosed early Monday.
While the crime rate in the nation’s capital has been on a downward trend, President Trump contends that the situation is decidedly the opposite, stating incidents of crime are ‘completely rampant’, even positing the idea of federal intervention. Reports by Reuters suggested that National Guard soldiers may be brought in although they are not expected to be involved in any detention operations. Their primary function would likely be to assist law enforcement agencies or take up tasks that would allow these agencies to focus on patrolling duties.
The Trump administration is also contemplating the short-term redeployment of roughly 120 F.B.I. agents in the city to nocturnal patrol tasks in an effort to reinforce Trump’s drive against crime. Majority of these agents will be reassigned from their usual responsibilities at the F.B.I.’s field office in Washington.
The impeding activation of troops within Washington D.C. signifies a growing trend given the recent directive this summer that saw the deployment of nearly 5,000 National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles. This action was implemented to suppress protests ignited by immigration raids as well as to provide protection for the federal agents carrying out these operations.
From the aforementioned Los Angeles deployment, a small fraction, approximately 250 soldiers, remain on duty while the rest have been gradually pulled back. During Trump’s initial tenure, he has been known to utilize National Guard soldiers and federal law enforcement officials to indiscriminately disperse peaceful demonstrators, such as those partaking in the Black Lives Matter protests triggered by the police-involved fatal shooting of George Floyd in 2020.
A unique aspect of the National Guard jurisdiction in Washington D.C. is its lack of local governor control. Unlike other states, the capital’s National Guard is directly answerable to the president, providing the president with considerable latitude to deploy said troops. This represents yet another facet of the ongoing policy discourse.
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