US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration was removing — for now — the US National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks held up the effort.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time!” he wrote on social media.
Governors typically control states’ National Guards, and Trump had deployed troops to all three cities against the wishes of state and local Democratic leaders. They have accused the Trump administration of federal overreach and of exaggerating isolated episodes of violence to justify sending in troops.
Photo: AP
Trump, a Republican, has said troop deployments in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Memphis, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, were necessary to fight crime, and protect federal property and personnel from protesters.
Judges overseeing lawsuits filed by cities challenging the deployments have consistently ruled that the Trump administration overstepped its authority and found that there is no evidence to support claims that troops are necessary to protect federal property from protesters.
Trump’s announcement came shortly before a federal appellate court on Wednesday ruled that his administration had to return hundreds of California National Guard troops to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s control.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday last week blocked Trump’s attempt to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois, a ruling that undercut his legal rationale for sending soldiers to other states.
The court said the president’s authority to take federal control of National Guard troops likely only applies in “exceptional” circumstances.
The local leaders who opposed Trump’s deployment of the National Guard on Wednesday said the legal challenges compelled him to end the deployments in those cities.
“About time [Trump] admitted defeat,” Newsom wrote on social media. “We’ve said it from day one: the federal takeover of California’s National Guard is illegal.”
In New Orleans, about 350 National Guard troops deployed by Trump arrived in the city’s historic French Quarter on Tuesday and were set to stay through Mardi Gras to help with safety. The state’s Republican governor and the city’s Democratic mayor support the deployment.
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