President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr are expected to announce Wednesday federal agents will be deployed into several American cities, including Chicago, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration’s intervention in local enforcement as Trump runs for reelection under a “law-and-order” mantle.
Hundreds of federal agents already have been sent to Kansas City, Missouri, to help quell a record rise in violence after the shooting death of a boy there. Sending federal agents to help localities is not uncommon. Barr announced a similar surge effort in December for seven cities that had seen spiking violence.
The move comes at the same time Democratic mayors of several cities, including Atlanta’s Keisha Lance Bottoms, have signed a letter calling on Trump to refrain from deploying federal agents to quell protests. The letter, which is undated and addressed to Barr and acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, notes Trump has threatened to send agents into Seattle, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
The mayors of Kansas City, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, Tucson and Portland also signed the letter.
This latest surge effort, according to The Associated Press, will include Department of Homeland Security Investigations officers, who generally conduct drug trafficking and child exploitation investigations.
Trump and Barr are expected to be joined at the White House announcement Wednesday by Chicago-based U.S. Attorney John Lausch, according to his office, along with the U.S. attorney and the sheriff of New Mexico's most populous county that includes Albuquerque.
DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statues.
Trump has linked the growing violence in the streets with protests over racial injustice. Local authorities are complaining the surges in federal agents have only exacerbated tensions on the streets.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot later said she and other local officials had spoken with federal authorities and come to an understanding.
"I've been very clear that we welcome actual partnership," the Democratic mayor said Tuesday after speaking with federal officials. "But we do not welcome dictatorship. We do not welcome authoritarianism, and we do not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents. That is something I will not tolerate."
In New Mexico, meanwhile, Democratic-elected officials were cautioning Trump against any possible plans to send federal agents to the state, with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich calling on Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales, who will be at the White House on Wednesday, to resign.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
"Instead of collaborating with the Albuquerque Police Department, the Sheriff is inviting the President's stormtroopers into Albuquerque," the Democratic senator said in a statement.
In Kansas City, the top federal prosecutor said any agents involved in an operation to reduce violent crime in the area will be clearly identifiable when making arrests, unlike what has been seen in Portland.
"These agents won't be patrolling the streets," U.S. Attorney Timothy Garrison said. "They won't replace or usurp the authority of local officers."
Operation Legend — named after 4-year-old LeGend Taliferro, who was fatally shot while sleeping in a Kansas City apartment late last month — was announced July 8.
“When they are making arrests or executing warrants, these federal agents will be clearly identified by their agency’s visible badges or insignia,” Garrison said. “The only people federal agents will be removing from the street are those they arrest in the course of their investigations of violent crimes.”
Garrison has said the additional 225 federal agents from the FBI, DEA, ATF and the U.S. Marshals Service join 400 agents already working and living in the Kansas City area.
Federal authorities, however, said state and local officials had been unwilling to work with them to stop the vandalism and violence against federal officers and the U.S. courthouse.
The use of federal agents against the will of local officials also has set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, legal experts say.
In a tweet Sunday, Trump blamed local leaders for violence in Chicago and other cities.
Trump has already deployed agents to Portland under the mantle of protecting federal buildings from protesters, drawing intense criticism from local leaders who say they have only exacerbated tensions.
State and local authorities, who didn’t ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a lawsuit filed late last week. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people on the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Violence after police reform protests has rocked the nation since the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
In Chicago, the president of the local police officers union wrote Trump a letter asking “for help from the federal government” to help combat gun violence. The city has seen 414 homicides this year, compared with 275 during the same period last year, and a spate of shootings in recent weeks as cities around the country have seen an uptick in violence.
But Lightfoot has said she does not want Trump to send agents to Chicago. The war of words between the two escalated Monday after a weekend when 12 were killed in the city and dozens injured by gunfire. Lightfoot rejected any suggestion federal law enforcement officers should be dispatched to the city.
In a letter sent to the president Monday, Lightfoot said the deployment of secret federal agents who “arrest, and detain residents without any cause” is a bad idea and urged the president not to do it.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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