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Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) is pressing Trump administration officials about the cost of the National Guard deployment to the nation’s capital, in addition to the scope and legal parameters of the operation.
“D.C. did not request or consent to the mass deployment of National Guard troops, who were recently authorized to carry weapons in the District despite D.C.’s crime rate being at a 30-year low,” Norton said Monday in a statement.
“A tenet of our democracy is that the military does not engage in civilian law enforcement, and it is not trained to do so in any case, which puts servicemembers and the public at risk. I urge you to end this gross abuse of power and withdraw the troops immediately.”
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Steven Nordhaus, chief of the National Guard Bureau, Norton reiterated her staunch opposition to the administration’s deployment and called it “a raw assertion of power over the more than 700,000 disenfranchised D.C. residents, a majority of whom are Black and Brown.”
She requested officials to respond to a list of questions regarding the deployment by the end of the week, including asks about the cost of the operation, troops’ authority to “stop, detain or arrest people” and “enforce the laws of the United States or the District of Columbia.”
She also asked about the use of force policy for the troops, the training they have received, the overall mission and if the troops are “subject to the laws” of the District.