“Fear is the point”: City, state brace for constitutional fight over Trump troop deployment 

By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY

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In a news conference meant to reassure Seattleites in the wake of President Donald Trump’s potentially illegal deployment of National Guard troops to Portland, Mayor Bruce Harrell said that within the next few days, he would issue an executive order detailing Seattle’s plans to keep its residents—particularly its immigrant and refugee community— safe.

“This president has no respect for the law. That’s why the courts have ruled against his deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles,” Harrell said at the Sept. 29 news conference. “What we see in Portland and again in Seattle … is not only unprecedented in the manner by which he is trying to do this, but unlawful.”

Trump has not directly said he would send National Guard troops into Seattle, as he did in Portland, but Harrell said that he had read “many statements in the newspaper about his son calling Seattle and Portland in the same breath: A crap hole.”

“They’ve made direct references to Seattle in different news accounts,” Harrell said, “but I have not received direct communication from them on their plans.”

Harrell said that the city has been working with several community-based organizations to ensure immigrants and refugees are safe, in the event Trump tries to deploy National Guard troops. He reassured those listening that the city and state are working to protect vulnerable residents.

“We will communicate with one another. We will fight in court. We will use our community-based organizations,” Harrell said. “And we have attorney generals and governors and mayors that do not mince words. We are resilient.”

Deputy Mayor Greg Wong, the Mayor’s Office’s general counsel, said that the city is also “working very closely with the City Attorney’s Office on all of our legal options and all of City Attorney [Anne] Davison’s team on that and in conjunction with the Attorney General’s Office.”

While the president of the United States does have the legal authority to deploy National Guard troops, there are protocols and procedural steps in place to prevent abuses of power, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown explained. One of those procedural steps is working in conjunction with the governor’s office, which Trump did not do in his decision to send troops to Portland.

“There are legal requirements for the facts on the ground that need to exist to justify the mobilization of the National Guard, or, certainly, the use of the United States military troops,” Brown said. “It depends on the types of authorities that the president is asserting, whether he’s initiating the Insurrection Act or some other tool. I think the problem that we see is that it’s completely reckless.”

Trump also did not inform the Pentagon of his decision, Brown said—the decision took them totally by surprise.

“It seems once again that he was watching a story or reading other things on Twitter, and that got him riled up, and then he made an announcement while on the golf course,” Brown said, referring to Trump’s prolific use of his own social media platform, Truth Social, where he opted to carry out his commands regarding Portland, claiming that the city was “War ravaged” and on the brink of an insurrection.

“And so,” Brown continued, “when we talk about communication to state and local leaders, that’s certainly not happening. But he’s also not coordinating with his own people.”

Oregon has correspondingly sued to block Trump’s illegal deployment of troops. For the past several days, Brown and his team have been working closely with Oregon’s Attorney General’s office. He highlighted that taking the National Guard away from their other responsibilities means that they are now no longer prepared to respond to true emergencies.

Washington state is also working with Los Angeles, where a federal judge already blocked Trump’s attempts to send in the National Guard, and Memphis, Tennessee, which is also gearing up for the National Guard’s presence.

“Their experiences of dealing with this authoritarianism has informed our work, and we want to make sure that we will be ready to respond if Washington state is ever put into the same position,” Brown said. “I think the only thing consistent from the president’s policy is that he indeed is attacking the people in places that didn’t vote for him or that he views as in opposition to him.”

Brown said that they are also working with Washington, D.C., where the National Guard currently walks the streets.

Brown said he recently visited D.C., and witnessed what the National Guard was actually doing there. It certainly wasn’t defending anyone from lawless abandon and chaos.

“What the National Guard is doing right now in D.C. is mostly just walking around and patrolling and picking up trash and really not doing any of their core missions,” Brown said.

Brown asserted that state law remains one of the most aggressive and robust in its protections for undocumented immigrants. He said that “not a damn thing has changed in Washington state law in eight months, despite the executive orders, and … there are still legal protections that we will robustly enforce to protect people’s rights.”

“But I also recognize that fear is the point,” Brown continued. “Fear is the point from this White House. … Every time I watch [Trump] speak, the vitriol that comes from his mouth and his lips—the tension people are feeling is very much intentional. That is exactly what they are trying to create in this city and in this country. To have a president of the United States who leads with that instinct is incredibly saddening for all of us.”