WASHINGTON (AP) — Three more Republican governors authorized the deployment of National Guard troops to Washington on Monday, part of President Donald Trump’s escalating show of force that he says is designed to crack down on crime and boost immigration enforcement in the nation’s capital. The announcements by Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana brought the number of state troops detailed to the president’s effort to more than 1,100 — and the number of states to six.
Governors from the states said they were responding to requests from the Trump administration to join the operation. It was not immediately clear why the administration requested additional military support. About 800 troops have already been called up from the Washington, D.C., guard and have had a limited assigned role so far in Trump’s 10-day-old attempted takeover of D.C. law enforcement.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the descriptions of the operation needed to be more honest — and acknowledge that they weren't just about curtailing crime but about immigration enforcement, a centerpiece of the second Trump administration that has echoed across the country in recent months. During a news conference, Bowser pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the city and voiced skepticism about the administration’s intentions.
“I think it makes the point that this is not about D.C. crime,” Bowser said of the administration and states deploying National Guard members onto the streets of the capital. “The focus should be on violent crime. ... Nobody is against focusing on driving down any level of violence. And so if this is really about immigration enforcement, the administration should make that plain.”
Trump’s executive order that launched the federal operation declared a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia and initiated a takeover of Washington’s police department. The administration has ordered local police to cooperate with federal agents on immigration enforcement, orders that would contradict local laws prohibiting such collaboration.
Federal agents have arrested 160 undocumented people in the district since the operation began, including people that White House officials allege are known gang members with prior felony offenses.
Friction with local government and community continues
The executive order has led to friction with the local government and heightened tensions in the community as a surge of federal agents in the capital garner praise and protest from residents.
The nation’s capital can govern itself through powers delegated to it by Congress, though the federal laws that grant that autonomy give wide breadth to the president and Congress to intervene when they see fit. That longstanding tension has led to a legal standoff between local officials and the White House in the current troop deployment and surge of federal officers into the district.
In what could also heighten tensions on the streets, Washington has been informed about the intent for the National Guard to be armed, though it has not received details about when that could happen or where armed Guard members could be deployed in the District, according to a person familiar who was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on condition of anonymity.
It would be a departure from what the Pentagon and Army have said about the troops being unarmed. The Army said in a statement last week that “weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory.” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson also said last week that troops won’t be armed.
In response to questions about whether Guard members in Washington would be armed in the coming days, the District of Columbia National Guard said troops “may be armed consistent with their mission and training.” Maj. Melissa Heintz, a spokesperson for the D.C. Guard, didn’t provide more details.
The stepped-up guard presence grew further Monday with the new deployments from Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, all led by Republican governors. A spokesperson for Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said that the governor had granted a request from the Trump administration for the state's National Guard members “to assist with monument security, community safety patrols, protecting federal facilities, and traffic control." The troops “are ready to assist as long as needed," the governor's office said.
In addition to Monday's announcements, West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 troops, South Carolina pledged 200 and Ohio said it will send 150 in the coming days, deployments that built on top of Trump's initial order that 800 National Guard troops deploy as part of the federal intervention.
National Guard members in the District of Columbia have been assisting law enforcement with tasks including crowd control and patrolling landmarks such as the National Mall and Union Station. Their role has been limited thus far, and it remains unclear why additional troops would be needed, though attention-getting optics have long been a part of Trump's playbook.
Questions remain about who is actually running the DC police
On Friday, the city's attorney general sued the administration for appointing the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as the city's “emergency police commissioner." The administration walked back the move but then issued a follow-up order that directed local police to “cooperate fully and completely with federal immigration authorities.”
“D.C. has been under siege from thugs and killers, but now, D.C. is back under Federal Control where it belongs,” Trump wrote on his social media website a day after issuing his order. “The White House is in charge. The Military and our Great Police will liberate this City, scrape away the filth, and make it safe, clean, habitable and beautiful once more!”
Federal agents from the DEA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service and other agencies have patrolled high-traffic areas around the capital over the last week. ICE officers, who work under the Department of Homeland Security, have made arrests in neighborhoods across the city, dispersed some public gatherings and torn pro-immigrant signs, according to videos published by the administration.
The White House has touted various arrests that local police and federal agents have made across the city since Trump's executive order. Federal agents have made 380 arrests in the week since the start of the operation and in some cases issued charges to detained people. The White House has touted the surge of agents on social media and posted pictures of people arrested by local and federal officers.
“Washington, DC is getting safer every night thanks to our law enforcement partners,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media. “Just this weekend, 137 arrests were made and 21 illegal firearms were seized. In total, there have been nearly 400 arrests—and we are not slowing down.”
Amid the crackdown, the administration has received criticism for the conduct of some federal agents, who in several high-profile incidents have arrested people while wearing masks that hide their identity and declined to identify themselves to media or members of the public when questioned. Bowser said Monday that she had asked D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith to seek answers from the administration about the use of masked police.
“It’s very important to us that agents be identified,” Bowser said. “There’s no reason for a law enforcement official to be masked.”
On Monday, dozens of protesters gathered in the U Street neighborhood of Washington, where multiple federal agents patrols and arrests had taken place over the weekend, to protest the Trump administration's actions.
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Associated Press writers Anna Johnson in Washington, Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
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