#militarization-of-policing

#militarization-of-policing

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington for President Donald Trump's law enforcement crackdown will be armed, the Pentagon said Friday. The Defense Department didn't immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed. The step is a escalation in Trump's intervention into policing in the nation's capital and comes as nearly 2,000 National Guard members are stationed in the city, with the arrival this week of hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states.

According to the White House's own numbers, as reported by WUSA9, the immediate priority of the newly federalized law-enforcement presence in D.C. has been going after undocumented immigrants: In the first week of President Donald Trump's federal takeover of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department, 383 people were arrested, according to the White House ... Numbers from the White House show immigration arrests are driving the surge. Officers made nearly three times as many arrests for immigration violations as firearm possession. Two arrests were related to homicides.