By Jan Wolfe and Jack Queen
Dec 4 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday handed a victory to President Donald Trump in his effort to keep National Guard troops in Washington, pausing a lower court order that would have ended the deployment in the coming days.
In a written order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted an injunction that said the troops needed to leave the nation’s capital by December 11.
The D.C. Circuit’s order, which is temporary and does not address the merits of the case, allows Trump to continue a deployment he began this summer and has ramped up in response to a November 26 shooting of two National Guard members near the White House.
The order came in a lawsuit filed by District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat and the capital city’s top legal officer.
Representatives for the White House and Schwalb’s office did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Thursday.
More than 2,000 National Guard soldiers have been in Washington since Trump’s initial deployment in August, part of the president’s contentious immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.
The guard troops in the city include contingents from the District of Columbia, as well as Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled on November 20 that the troop presence was likely unlawful. She temporarily blocked the deployment, but paused her ruling for three weeks to allow time for the administration to remove the troops, as well as to appeal her decision.
Rather than begin a winddown, Trump, a Republican, ordered 500 more troops to Washington after the shooting of two members of the West Virginia National Guard, which officials described as a “targeted” attack. One of the two guard members has since died from her injuries.
A 29-year-old Afghan national is facing charges for the shooting, prompting Trump to escalate his anti-immigrant rhetoric and declare a halt to migration from what he called “third-world countries.”
FIGHT OVER POLICING POWERS
Schwalb sued on September 4, accusing Trump of unlawfully usurping control of the city’s law enforcement and violating a law prohibiting troops from doing domestic police work.
The president has unique law-enforcement powers in Washington, which is not part of any state, but local officials say he overstepped by taking over the mayor’s policing role and flouting laws that forbid federal troops from doing civilian police work.
Trump administration lawyers called the lawsuit a political stunt in court filings and said the president is free to deploy troops to Washington without the approval of local leaders.
Trump has also moved to deploy troops in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, to combat what he describes as lawlessness and violent unrest over his immigration crackdown.
Democratic leaders of those cities and their states have sued to block the deployments, saying they amount to an attempt to punish political foes with militarized shows of force.
Trial courts around the country have ruled against the troop deployments. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to soon weigh in on the legality of Trump’s use of the National Guard in Chicago, a decision with repercussions for other cities.
(Reporting by Jack Queen and Jan Wolfe; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Diane Craft)
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