DC National Guard Deployment Extended To November, General Says

Topline

The National Guard will remain in Washington, D.C., until Nov. 30, Brig. Gen. Leland D. Blanchard II said in a statement Thursday, extending the controversial deployment for nearly three months as D.C.’s attorney general challenges it in court.

The extension of the deployment was ordered Thursday. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Blanchard, the interim commanding general for the D.C. National Guard, said he made the decision to “extend the encampment, as we continue to work to ensure everyone that walks these city streets is safe.”

The National Guard has been deployed in D.C. since Aug. 12, a day after President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the city despite 30-year low violent crime rates.

The extension comes just hours after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration over the National Guard deployment, accusing the federal government of running “roughshod over a fundamental tenet of American democracy—that the military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement.”

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Big Number

2,000. That is the number of National Guard troops in D.C. assisting hundreds of federal agents with arrests and patrols.

Chief Critic

“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 in a statement Thursday, characterizing the deployment as “federal overreach.”

Key Background

Trump’s use of the National Guard to assist law enforcement began in June, when troops were sent to Los Angeles to assist police with anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests primarily centered in the city’s downtown area. The deployment was made without approval from Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., who scored a win against Trump on Tuesday when a federal court found the ongoing deployment of 300 National Guard members to be illegal. The Trump administration appealed the ruling Thursday and is now gearing up for another legal battle over the deployment of troops in D.C. Meanwhile, Trump has suggested sending the National Guard to New Orleans, walking back plans to deploy troops in Chicago as Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., has threatened legal action against a potential deployment. Gov. Jeff Landry, R-La., has been supportive of plans to deploy troops, saying in a tweet “we will take President [Donald Trump’s] help from New Orleans to Shreveport!” Democratic leaders have leaned on the Posse Comitatus Act in combating the deployments, arguing the Trump administration violated the law that bars the military from being used as civilian law enforcement.