Denver pushes back on possible National Guard deployment

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – As calls grow for President Donald Trump to send the National Guard to Denver, city and state officials are pushing back.

Last week, the city and county of Denver joined an amicus brief filed in support of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit against Trump’s June deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles.

That deployment was in response to mass protests and riots against immigration enforcement. Though over 4,000 troops were initially deployed, as of the end of July, Newsom reported that just a few hundred remained in the city.

Since that first action, Trump also deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., to decrease crime and address illegal immigration.

Denver joined 26 other local governments on the amicus brief, which argued that Trump “usurped” local law enforcement and government officials by deploying the National Guard despite their protests.

The brief highlighted concerns that Trump will send the National Guard to other cities, which he has already discussed doing for Memphis and Chicago.

“Worse still, this drastic and provocative executive action has quickly spiraled into further actual and threatened military deployments across the country,” the brief warned. “Plans are underway to deploy the National Guard to police nineteen more states ... Military policing shatters our nation’s bedrock history and tradition of preserving state and local control over the police power.”

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston warned further deployments could lead to a “federal police state.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser also announced Monday he has joined a multi-state amicus brief in support of another lawsuit challenging Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to D.C.

Not all cities are against the deployment though, with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry praising Trump’s plan to send the National Guard to America’s cities.

“Our cities are already war zones,” Landry said on Monday. “Too many people already die.”

Trump has not yet singled out Denver for deployment. Currently Colorado has 5,500 National Guard members.

The city has been historically at odds with the Trump administration since the president took office in January. It has filed or joined multiple lawsuits against the administration, which has withheld significant amounts of funding due to Colorado and Denver’s refusal to cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts.

Despite the lack of cooperation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and federal partners have still successfully arrested hundreds of criminal foreign nationals in the Denver area.

Many Denverites have joined together on social media in calling for Trump to deploy the National Guard to the city, citing crime. Conservative pundit Alex Jones pointed to Denver in a recent video as a “crime-ridden blue city” that could benefit from a National Guard deployment.

Those issues are on the minds of many in Denver, according to a recent poll from the Colorado Polling Institute.

That poll found that the top three issues facing voters in Denver were homelessness and encampments (44%), affordable housing (30%), and crime, drug problems, and safety (26%). Almost half (48%) of respondents also said there is too little police presence in Denver.