CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Community advocates represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU-WV) have filed a lawsuit in Kanawha County Circuit Court to halt deployment of the West Virginia National Guard to the streets of Washington, D.C.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced over the weekend he would send 300-400 Guard members to the nation’s capital as part of the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s law enforcement. President Trump insists that crime is out of control in the city despite reports showing it is actually at a 30-year low. Morrisey is one of six Republican governors sending Guard members to aid the takeover.
The lawsuit challenges the deployment as exceeding the governor's constitutional and statutory authority. West Virginia law governing National Guard deployments was shaped by legal battles following the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, where National Guard troops were deployed against U.S. citizens, ACLU-WV Legal Director Aubrey Sparks said.
"The Guard's services are indispensable to West Virginia, and sending these vital resources out of state to participate in a political stunt by the President is unprecedented, unconscionable, and unlawful," Sparks said. "Neither state law nor our Constitution permits this deployment."
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of West Virginia Citizen Action Group (WV CAG), argues that the deployment violates established legal boundaries: "This action challenges an unprecedented and unlawful deployment of West Virginia National Guard forces beyond our state's borders — not to defend against invasion, not to respond to natural disaster, not to assist a sister state's emergency request — but to serve as political props in a manufactured crisis that Washington, D.C. officials neither requested nor support. Governor Patrick Morrisey has exceeded his constitutional and statutory authority by ordering West Virginia service members to abandon their families, jobs, and communities to police the streets of our nation's capital, where violent crime has reached its lowest level in thirty years. West Virginia law is clear: The Governor may deploy the National Guard outside our borders only for specific, enumerated purposes — none of which exist here.”
Dani Parent, Executive Director of WV CAG, said: “West Virginia Citizen Action Group has deep concerns about the Governor’s deployment of the West Virginia National Guard to Washington, D.C. As an organization with over 50 years of advocating and organizing West Virginians for accountability, justice, and good governance, we believe that the use of West Virginia’s National Guard troops in this context is a clear misuse of power. The Guard exists to serve West Virginians in times of crisis, and this action appears to be motivated by partisanship and to appease the current federal administration. Sending our Guard out of state for political posturing serves only to divert critical resources needed here at home. The Governor’s priority should be in serving West Virginians, not political grandstanding.”
The legal challenge seeks to restore the rule of law and return West Virginia's citizen-soldiers to their proper role serving the Mountain State's communities.
The case was filed Thursday afternoon and assigned to Circuit Judge Richard Lindsay.
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