President Trump announced Monday that he is taking “historic action” to “take the capital back” by deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and federalizing the city’s police department to “re-establish law and order,” and threatened the homeless population with jail time if they do not leave the city. Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, says there are legal limitations for the federal takeover of police forces. “He has to do it for an emergency, for a limited period of time and for federal purposes,” says Hopkins. “The president has made up these blatant pretextual emergencies to justify calling out the National Guard … to essentially take over cities in blatant disregard for our democracy.”

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