A federal judge on Thursday ordered the monthslong National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. to end, finding that the use of troops was “unlawful.” The ruling is the latest legal pushback against President Trump’s use of military forces in U.S. cities to respond to protests, combat crime or protect federal buildings and personnel.
The decision follows recent actions in other jurisdictions: a Tennessee judge temporarily blocked Guard mobilization in Memphis after the governor activated forces at Trump’s request, and the Defense Department over the weekend directed hundreds of troops to leave Chicago and Portland, Ore., as courts weighed challenges to deployments.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, sided with D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who argued that the president’s deployment undermined the District’s autonomy, endangered public safety by inflaming tensions between residents and law enforcement, and harmed the local economy. “The Court finds that the District’s exercise of sovereign powers within its jurisdiction is irreparably harmed by Defendants’ actions in deploying the Guards,” Cobb wrote.
Cobb stayed her order until Dec. 11 to give the Trump administration time to appeal. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the president acted within his authority and called the lawsuit an attempt to undermine “the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.”
Trump sent hundreds of Guard troops to D.C. in early August without the mayor’s consent after declaring a “crime emergency,” a claim disputed by local Democratic leaders. Guard personnel have been assigned to patrols and to beautification tasks such as trash removal, spreading mulch and pruning. As of Wednesday, the deployment included more than 2,100 Guard members from the District and several states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, according to the U.S. Army.