Trump : halts the National Guard’s deployment in Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago, saying, “We will return.”
Trump: US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the National Guard from Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago on Wednesday (local time). The 79-year-old Republican leader announced his decision on Truth Social, saying that the National Guard’s presence had greatly reduced violence in the aforementioned communities and that they would have “gone” if the federal government had not stepped in.
However, the US president said that if violence increases in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, the National Guard may be redeployed there.When crime starts to rise once again, we will return—possibly in a much stronger and different form. It’s only a matter of time! Given the tremendous progress that has been accomplished, it is difficult to think that these Democratic governors and mayors, who are all so stupid, would want us to go,” Trump said.
Donald Trump’s Truth Social post screen capture.
National Guard deployment and the ruling of the US Supreme Court
Citing violence and the ‘inability’ of local law enforcement agencies to uphold law and order, the Trump administration began stationing National Guard members in a number of cities in June of last year. The president said the deployment was required to combat crime and safeguard government property, despite objections from courts who say the Trump administration has “overstepped” its jurisdiction.
On December 24, however, the US Supreme Court denied the Trump administration’s request to send the National Guard to the Chicago region, where a mass arrests were made as part of an immigration enforcement campaign. Three justices, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, rendered the decision.
The Trump administration, the court said, had not shown that the relevant legislation “permits the president to federalise the Guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois.”
Prior to this, Trump was also ordered by a federal court to stop the National Guard from being deployed in Los Angeles. Despite Trump’s failures, a US appeals court last month upheld a lower court decision that had ordered the National Guard to stop its deployment in Washington, DC, for the time being.