Judge Blocks DC National Guard Deployment

A federal judge on Thursday blocked President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., amid his crackdown on local crime, the latest blow to the president’s efforts to deploy military forces in Democratic cities without the backing of local leaders.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Biden, ruled that the Pentagon’s deployment of D.C. National Guard members for “non-military, crime-deterrence missions” and its calls for assistance from out-of-state troops likely exceeded federal authority and violated the law.

“The record in this case, including many of the amicus briefs filed, makes clear that there are strong views on both sides about whether these deployments represent good policy,” Cobb wrote. “But the Court is only tasked with deciding whether Defendants’ actions are lawful.”

She paused her order until Dec. 11 so the administration may appeal.

D.C.’s attorney general sued the Trump administration in September, after Trump announced the month prior he would take over the city’s police department and send in the National Guard to clamp down on street crime. More than 2,000 troops are deployed in the nation’s capital.

Some of those troops came from the district’s own National Guard, which is under Trump’s command. The others were deployed from nine Republican-led states, under an authority that provides federal funding but maintains local command.

Cobb noted that the current size of National Guard deployment measures roughly two-thirds the size of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, all of whom are patrolling the city’s streets.

“At its core, Congress has given the District rights to govern itself,” the judge wrote. “Those rights are infringed upon when Defendants approve, in excess of their statutory authority, the deployment of National Guard troops to the District.”

She said that the Trump administration has “usurped” the city’s sovereign powers under the Home Rule Act, the law that governs the district’s control over its local affairs, with its unlawful actions.

Justice Department lawyers contended that Trump’s executive powers alone allow him control over the local National Guard troops, but Cobb determined that the president has “no free-floating Article II power to deploy the (D.C. National Guard) for the deterrence of crime.”

The administration also contended that the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, had cooperated with the local crackdown, showing the city has suffered no injury from the troops’ deployment. But the judge said it’s “well-established” that D.C’s attorney general can sue on the city’s behalf.

In addition to D.C.’s own troops, National Guard members have been deployed to Washington from South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama and South Dakota.

Their call-up under Title 32 means they are not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 statute that generally bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement, because they are technically under a governor’s command — despite receiving their mission from the White House.

Brian Schwalb, the city’s attorney general, had argued that the administration federalized those troops and put them under Trump’s command in all but name.

“Within the context and structure of Title 32, the Court finds that section 502(f) cannot bear the expansive interpretation that Defendants attribute to it and that Plaintiff is also likely to succeed on the merits of this claim,” Cobb wrote.

Schwalb called the decision a victory for “DC, Home Rule and American democracy” in a statement posted to X.

“As we made clear from the start: the US military should not police American citizens on American soil,” he said.

The decision comes as the Supreme Court weighs whether to allow Trump’s National Guard deployment to Chicago to move forward. A federal judge in Oregon earlier this month also permanently blocked the president’s deployment of troops to Portland.