Members of the National Guard stand near an escalator at the Farragut North subway station in Washington, D.C., on November 13.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday ordered an end to the months-long deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to fight crime, saying the use of troops was “unlawful.”
This final legal resistance opposes President Trump's deployment of troops to American cities as a means of quelling protests, fighting crime, or protecting federal buildings and personnel, including ICE agents.
This comes just days after a Tennessee judge imposed a temporary ban on the Guard force being mobilized in Memphis, which was activated by the Tennessee governor at Trump's direction. Over the weekend, the Department of Defense ordered hundreds of soldiers will leave Chicago and Portland, Oregon. as federal courts have stalled that rollout.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Gia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, sided with D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who argued that the president is undermining the city's autonomy, threatening public safety by causing tension between local residents and law enforcement, and harming the city's economy.
“The Court finds that Defendants' actions in using the Guard caused irreparable harm to the County's exercise of sovereign powers within its jurisdiction,” she wrote.
Cobb suspended enforcement of her order until Dec. 11 to give the Trump administration time to appeal.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said it was within Trump's power to send the Guard to Washington.
“This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt—to the detriment of D.C. residents—to undermine the President’s highly successful efforts to stop violent crime in the District of Columbia,” Jackson added.
Trump sent hundreds of troops to D.C. without the mayor's consent in early August after declaring the city a “crime emergency.” This claim has been repeatedly denied by local Democratic leaders. Since then, Guard members have been primarily assigned to patrol and landscaping work, such as picking up trash, laying mulch and trimming trees.
As of Wednesday, more than 2,100 Guardsmen were stationed in the nation's capital from the District of Columbia and several states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, according to the U.S. Army.
