Protesters call National Guard in New Orleans a civil rights threat

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The Trump administration plans to deploy 1,000 national guard troops to New Orleans and Baton Rouge according to the Washington Post.

This wouldn’t be the first time this year that the National Guard made its way to New Orleans as they recently came for the Sugar Bowl, Mardi gras and the Super Bowl.

Protesters say this deployment would have a more sinister reason behind it.

“This is completely different in that we see a president sending the national guard to occupy its own people and criminalize working class people,” protester Eric Gabourel said.

Protesters have called this potential deployment an “attack on civil liberties” and “unconstitutional targeting of Black and immigrant communities.”

“The presence of the national guard with a full mandate to racially profile means that no matter what, people in New Orleans are going to lose,” protester Jade Woods said.

They say the solution for a safer New Orleans doesn’t come from force but from a more social approach.

“Really what we’re seeing is all of these signs point to a trend of funding policing, funding the military over funding the people; and so we really want to put the funding into what will really help the people to stop crime before it even starts and get to the real root issues instead of policing or militarization being a mandate on the issue,” Woods said.

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