Trump says he's deploying National Guard to DC after declaring 'crime emergency'

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he's deploying the National Guard across Washington and taking over the city's police department in the hopes of reducing crime, as the city’s mayor noted that crime is falling in the US capital.

The Republican president, who said he was formally declaring a public safety emergency, compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia.

Trump also said at his news briefing that his administration has started removing homeless encampments "from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks."

"We're getting rid of the slums, too," Trump said, adding that the US would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi will be taking over responsibility for Washington's metro police department, he said, while also complaining about potholes and graffiti in the city and calling them "embarrassing."

For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects a next step in his law enforcement agenda after his aggressive push to stop illegal border crossings.

But the move involves at least 500 federal law enforcement officials as well as the National Guard, raising fundamental questions about how an increasingly emboldened federal government will interact with its state and local counterparts.

Combating crime

Trump said he is invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to deploy members of the National Guard.

About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation’s capital as part of the Trump administration’s effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told the AP news agency on Monday.

More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are also contributing officers.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately make any comment on the deployments.

The National Guard

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, questioned the effectiveness of using the National Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the DC Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.

"I just think that's not the most efficient use of our Guard," she said on MSNBC's "The Weekend" programme.

Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week.

She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023 while Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World."

"Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false," Bowser said.

Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

Focus on homelessness

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump emphasised the removal of Washington's homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go.

"The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY," Trump wrote. "We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong."

Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was "ridiculous" and the city was "unsafe."