New Orleans could be the possible next target for United States President, Donald Trump, to deploy the National Guard to combat crime and potentially expand the list of cities across the country.
The cities of Baltimore and Chicago will also potentially receive federal law enforcement presence after starting with Washington D.C. in August.
During a meeting at the Oval office with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Trump said, “Do we go to Chicago? Do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad.”
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has weighed in on the matter via X (formerly Twitter) saying, “We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!”
Since deploying the National Guard and other federal agents in Washington D.C., Trump has been boasting about turning the nation’s capital into a safer place.
In New Orleans’ case, crime has decreased over the last two years. Crime statistics from AH Datalytics and New Orleans Police Department show that New Orleans has its lowest crime rate in 50 years.
Political science professor and civil rights expert at Loyola Phillip A. Dynia said he does not believe that President Trump has the right to deploy the troops to the city.
“None of you can believe a federal judge in California who ruled recently with respect to Trump’s sending troops to Los Angeles,” Dynia said.
When asked what the current mayoral administration could do to combat President Trump’s action, he said, “The answer is: resist–by challenging Trump in court, and also by persuading other city officials to refuse to cooperate with ICE or any other Trump-controlled organizations whose masked thugs show (or rather don’t show) their faces on our streets.”
Some students feel as though it is fear mongering and invasive to the immigrant and people of color community of New Orleans, specifically the Loyola community.
“I just think that the whole idea of [President Trump] implementing the National Guard down here is imposing the notion of ‘dictatorship’ and goes against his ideology of states’ rights,” said Kennedi Franklin, a Loyola psychology major.
Washington D.C native and Loyola student Madison Davis said, “[President Trump] saying it’s for violence and we know that it’s most definitely to deport people or more so entrapment. If you look at numbers, both the Obama and Biden administrations deported more people than President Trump has during his presidency without doing all of this.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
