(AFP) – The attorney general for the US capital filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to end President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to address crime in the city.
“Deploying the National Guard to engage in law enforcement is not only unnecessary and unwanted, but it is also dangerous and harmful to the District and its residents,” Brian Schwalb said in a statement announcing the suit.
“No American city should have the US military—particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement—policing its streets,” Schwalb said. “It’s DC today but could be any other city tomorrow,” he added. “We’ve filed this action to put an end to this illegal federal overreach.”
Trump ordered nearly 2,300 National Guard to patrol Washington on August 11, claiming the city was a “filthy and crime-ridden embarrassment.” The Republican president has also threatened to mobilize National Guard troops to address crime in other Democratic-run cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans.
Trump has denied charges he is strictly targeting cities run by his political opponents for his anti-crime campaign and his crackdown on undocumented migrants. Schwalb’s lawsuit names Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the Department of Defense as among the defendants.
The DC attorney general’s move comes two days after a federal judge in California ruled that Trump effectively violated the law when he used troops to put down protests over immigration raids in Democrat-run Los Angeles. Judge Charles Breyer said Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief” and barred the National Guard from performing police functions, including arrests or searches and seizures.
The Washington attorney general’s office said deploying the National Guard in the nation’s capital amounts to “an involuntary military occupation that far exceeds the President’s authority.” It threatens to “undermine public safety by inflaming tensions” and is hurting the local economy by “driving away tourists and patrons of local businesses,” Schwalb’s office said.
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