If Donald Trump tries to send troops it would backfire, Mayor Bill de Blasio said (File)
New York:
New York would go to court to prevent President Donald Trump from sending federal troops into the city to quell the rise in crime, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday.
After the Department of Homeland Security deployed dozens of border patrol officers and federal marshals – many in combat fatigues – to Portland, Oregon last week to fight anti-racism protests, Trump said on Monday he could do it in other Democratic-led countries. cities.
He called the move necessary, but critics called it the political culprit of the election year.
“This president is bluffing and bluffing and says he’s going to do things and they never materialize regularly,” de Blasio told reporters.
“If he tried to do that, it would only create more problems, it would backfire on us, not make us safer and we would immediately take action in court to end it.
“From my point of view, this would be another example of illegal and unconstitutional actions by the president,” added the mayor.
Trump’s decision to involve federal law enforcement officials in local protests sparked anger and legal questions.
Ever since African-American man George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, sparking nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, Trump has sought to portray the protesters as radical leftists bent on destroying the country .
Facing a bitter November re-election battle against Democrat Joe Biden, Trump is using the protests to rally support from his conservative base, Democrats say.
“We are also looking at Chicago. We are looking at New York,” Trump told reporters Monday, also naming Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore.
“Look what’s going on. All led by Democrats, all led by very liberal Democrats, all led really by the radical left. We can’t let this happen to the city.”
According to reports, DHS was preparing to send 150 paramilitaries to Chicago this week after police clashed with protesters seeking to demolish a statue of Christopher Columbus.
Protests in New York have been extremely peaceful in recent weeks, but the city has seen an increase in crime, which senior officials attribute to restrictions on police following Floyd’s murder.
Critics suspect police may hold themselves back in protest, while police say they are out of breath.
Since DHS forces arrived in Portland, a video has shown them taking protesters away in unmarked vehicles.
Most have been freed, but critics – including the Oregon governor and senators – have compared him to a “secret police” in more repressive societies.
Oregon sued DHS for rights violations, while state governor Kate Brown demanded that the officers be removed, calling the deployment a political “photo shoot”.
Mayors of six major cities – Atlanta, Washington, Seattle, Chicago, Portland and Kansas City – on Monday said in a letter to Wolf and Attorney General Bill Barr that uninvited paramilitary deployments violate the Constitution.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
