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SAN FRANCISCO — President Donald Trump said he’s dropping – for now – his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort.
Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!” he wrote.
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration. They had been sent to Chicago and Portland but were never on the streets as legal challenges played out.
The president has made a crackdown on crime in cities a centerpiece of his second term – and has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to stop his opponents from using the courts to block his plans.
He has said he sees his tough-on-crime approach as a winning political issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
In November, U.S. Northern Command had said it was ” shifting and/or rightsizing operations in Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles, but there would be a “constant, enduring and long-term presence in each city.”
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area as part of its crackdown on immigration. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.
In the nation’s capital, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen.
Hundreds of troops from California and Oregon were deployed to Portland, but a federal judge barred them from going on the streets. A judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there in November after a three-day trial.
California National Guard troops were removed from the streets of Los Angeles by Dec. 15 after a court ruling. But an appeals court had paused a separate part of the order that required control of the Guard to return to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order. That paves the way for the California National Guard troops to fully return to state control after Trump federalized the Guard in June.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the development a “major litigation victory” in a press release Wednesday.
“For six months, California National Guard troops have been used as political pawns by a President desperate to be king,” Bonta said. “There is a reason our founders decided military and civilian affairs must be kept separate; a reason that our military is, by design, apolitical.”
Trump also ordered the deployment of the Tennessee National Guard to Memphis in September to combat crime, a move supported by the state’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee and senators. A Tennessee judge blocked the use of the Guard, siding with Democratic state and local officials who sued.
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Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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