(AFP) – US President Donald Trump floated the idea Wednesday of deploying troops to the southern tourist hub of New Orleans, as he targets Democratic-run cities in a high-profile crackdown on crime. The Republican leader has touted his campaign against what he describes as high-crime cities flooded with undocumented immigrants, so far sending troops to Los Angeles and the capital Washington over the objections of local officials.
Critics say Trump is overstepping his powers in ordering troops to carry out duties, including arrests and search and seizures, typically handled by local police and immigration agents. “So we’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become … quite tough, quite bad,” the US president told reporters at the White House.
Trump vowed he could get New Orleans under control “in about two weeks.” Landry, a Trump ally, responded enthusiastically on X, saying, “We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!” Though much of Louisiana is staunchly Republican, the state’s largest city of New Orleans is deeply Democratic, with pockets of severe poverty contributing to its crime rate.
Like other cities targeted by Trump in his crackdown and in keeping with national trends, New Orleans has recorded sharp declines in murders and other violent crimes this year. “Militarizing the streets of New Orleans is not a solution,” Democratic US congressman Troy Carter, who represents New Orleans and surrounding areas, said on X. “If the President wants to provide federal resources to the City, I’ll work with him to provide funding to recruit and better train police officers, better fund our district attorney, fix the infrastructure at Orleans Parish Prison and fund the very programs he has cut that get at the root cause of crime: systemic poverty.”
On Wednesday, Landry also appeared alongside Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and US Attorney General Pam Bondi at a press conference outside of the Angola prison to announce a new facility there to separately house up to 400 immigrants convicted of crimes. “Angola is the largest maximum security prison in the country, with 18,000 acres bordered by the Mississippi River, swamps filled with alligators and forests filled with bears. Nobody really wants to leave the place,” Landry told reporters. “The idea is to consolidate the worst of the worst, criminal illegal aliens, gang members, rapists, drug dealers, human smugglers that have no place in this country.”
Trump had been focusing most of his recent military deployment threats on the Democratic stronghold of Chicago, which he described Tuesday as a “hellhole” ravaged by gun crime. JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of the state of Illinois where Chicago is located, responded that Trump is “producing a political drama to cover up for his corruption.” Trump has also proposed putting boots on the ground in New York and Baltimore.
© 2024 AFP
