Washington, D.C. sues Trump administration over National Guard deployment

Washington: Washington, D.C. has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital, the district’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.

“We are suing to block the unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to DC,” Schwalb posted on Thursday on social media platform X.

“The forced military occupation of the District of Columbia violates our local autonomy and basic freedoms. It must end.”

The Attorney General’s office argues that the deployment violates the Home Rule Act which grants a local government (like a municipality or a district) the authority to govern itself, exercising powers of governance within its own administrative area, Xinhua news agency reported.

The lawsuit was filed less than one month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 11 on deploying the National Guard to D.C. to help restore law and order and ensure public safety.

Aside from the original 800 National Guard troops, six Republican-led states have supported the President’s effort by sending additional personnel, bringing the total deployment in D.C. to more than 2,000.

The D.C. lawsuit follows a court victory by the Democratic-run US state of California earlier this week.

On Tuesday, District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco ruled that the Trump administration violated a 19th-century law barring the use of soldiers for civilian law enforcement when it deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June.

Schwalb, a Democrat, noted that the National Guard deployment not only undermines public safety, but also hurts the district’s economy by depressing key sectors such as restaurants, hotels and tourism.

The Trump administration countered that the deployment has helped drive down violent crime in the district.

Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department data showed that 20-year homicide trends last year were at their lowest point since the 2020 pandemic.

Homicide rates in 2024 were 68 per cent lower than the record highs of the 1990s, from about 80 homicides per 100,000 residents to about 25 homicides per 100,000 residents, FBI crime data showed.

But those rates last year were almost twice as high as in 2012, when the nation’s capital experienced a 50-year low in the number of homicides per capita.

Trump has vowed to deploy the National Guard to other cities in the US.

He initially told reporters on Tuesday that the Guard would be “going in” Chicago, which he described as a “hellhole” and “the murder capital of the world”.

IANS