Washington sues the Trump administration over National Guard deployment

Washington, D.C. has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over the deployment of the National Guard in its streets, ordered last month by U.S. President Donald Trump. Since August 11, thousands of local Guardsmen and troops from seven other states have been patrolling the capital’s main monuments and subway system, among other areas, to confront what the president has described as a wave of crime serious enough to warrant a state of emergency. Official figures, however, suggest otherwise.

“No American city should have the U.S. military — particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement — policing its streets,” said Brian Schwalb, attorney general for the District of Columbia. “We’ve filed this action to put an end to this illegal federal overreach.”

The lawsuit comes just two days after a federal judge in San Francisco declared a similar deployment of National Guard troops, ordered by Trump this past June in Los Angeles, illegal. This deployment was also justified on the grounds of public safety. It also comes amid Trump’s growing threats to repeat the operation in other majority-Democratic cities, including Chicago, Baltimore, and, as of this week, New Orleans. All of them, like Washington and Los Angeles, are led by Democratic and African American mayors.

Trump boasts that the deployments have dramatically improved security in both cities. On Thursday, the president boasted on his social platform, Truth Social, about the number of arrests in Washington since the streets have been patrolled not only by soldiers, but also by federal police and immigration agents. According to White House figures, in the three weeks since the deployment, there have been 1,669 arrests and 709 criminals removed from the streets.

Polls, however, point to deep discontent among the 700,000 residents of the city and more than six million in the metropolitan area. Nearly 80% oppose the deployment, and 78% say they feel less safe due to the presence of troops on the streets. Prominent figures in the hospitality sector, such as Spanish chef José Andrés, have publicly criticized the president’s decision, citing a decline in bar and restaurant attendance since the operation began.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the city’s lawsuit as “nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of D.C. residents and visitors — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC."

In the Los Angeles case, Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the National Guard deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, signed in 1878, which prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement functions. “The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act,” the judge wrote.

Another law, the 218-year-old Insurrection Act, allows the president to deploy the National Guard — composed of reservists who balance their duties with civilian jobs — in cases of rebellion against the government in any U.S. state. That law specifies that the presidential order must come “when requested by a state’s legislature, or governor if the legislature cannot be convened,” but it also grants the president authority to send National Guard troops if deemed necessary to quell an insurrection.

Washington’s case is different, since the city is not a state but a district. Its National Guard, unlike in the states where it is under the governor’s control, is under the direct authority of the president. But the lawsuit argues that the deployment order, issued without the express consent of Mayor Muriel Bowser, violates the city’s autonomy, guaranteed by a 1973 law. It also echoes the arguments made in Los Angeles, stressing that the presence of troops in the streets “has run roughshod over a fundamental tenet of American democracy — that the military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement.”

This is the second lawsuit Washington has filed against Trump’s order. In the first, it argued that the president could not take control of the local police, as outlined in the lawsuit. Eventually, Attorney General Pam Bondi approved a more limited role for federal agents, confined to supporting operations by the Metropolitan Police.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition