A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For more about this shooting and the investigation, we've called Juliette Kayyem. She served as assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration. As the Homeland Security adviser in Massachusetts, she oversaw the state's National Guard. Today, she serves as faculty chair of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard University. So, Juliette, this shooting, is it possible to change maybe the way in which guard members are preparing for missions on the streets of major American cities now?
JULIETTE KAYYEM: It would be possible, but it has to begin with understanding what the mission is, and I think that's one of the challenges right now. The National Guard in D.C., like all the other National Guards deployed by President Trump, were sent to essentially blue cities to do what's called high visibility patrols. These are - you know, these are literally as advertised. These are you - the Trump administration wanted a lot of members of the National Guard in uniform to essentially just sort of roam the street. Some of them do beautification campaigns. So it's difficult to know how you would better protect, for example, the troops, the National Guard troops deployed in cities under the mission that they are in right now.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now President Trump has called for the deployment of 500 more National Guard troops in Washington. Considering everything that's happened not only just recently, but in the last few months, what do you think that might do to the safety of members of the guard and for the people of D.C.?
KAYYEM: So 500 is not a lot sort of overall, but it's a lot for D.C., considering the deployment has just been a couple thousand. I think we err in believing that quantity is the problem - right? - that if only we did more troops, then they would be safer. That's just a - it's a - not a sophisticated way of looking at it. The problem is the mission. We have deployed National Guard members who joined the National Guard, not for these purposes. They joined the National Guard to support and - their neighbors in their states. They've been deployed to D.C. under a very nebulous mission, and it's the mission that is the challenge, right?
It's - what are they there for? What are the rules of engagement? What are the metrics for success? What's our standard operating procedures? All the questions that you would ask in any normal situation have not been asked or defined by the Pentagon. So its response yesterday was, OK, well, we'll just add more, as if that is the problem. It is not. The challenge is, of course, protecting the National Guard when they're deployed, and that begins with understanding and defining for them what the mission is.
MARTÍNEZ: Considering, Juliette, how closely you've worked with the National Guard over the years, I'm wondering if you've heard from people...
KAYYEM: Yes.
MARTÍNEZ: ...Who have chosen to enlist in this part-time military service. What have they been saying?
KAYYEM: So most have not chosen it, and most are confused by it. I have strong ties with National Guard members in my state of Massachusetts, but elsewhere and have spoken to many of them that have been deployed in other cities. And, I mean, the data is pretty clear. There's been some polling that this is a deployment that they don't understand and don't particularly like. It is a deployment that their leadership doesn't know how to explain. I mean, for someone who - you know, these victims from West Virginia, you know, they're taken from their homes, from their home state. They are sent to a city where they know no one. They are taken away from their jobs because most National Guard members are not full-time, and they are deployed in conflict with a city that they don't know, but it's an American city. It's been confusing for everyone all around, and that's why, in the past, regardless of what the legal standards are, this has never been done in the past to deploy a military asset for traditional law enforcement purposes or beautification purposes, which serve no public safety aim.
MARTÍNEZ: President Trump also said the U.S. must, quote, "reexamine every Afghan" who came here since the Taliban fell. Juliette, how would that logistically work?
KAYYEM: The Trump administration will essentially - I think there's no question about it - close all processes for Afghans right now that have been trying to make permanent their immigration status. What that looks like a few weeks or months from now, we don't know. But there are a lot of Afghans who supported us, the United States, during the Afghan war, who have been brought to the United States or are pending permanent status in the United States for their support of us in the Afghan war, who are now going to be impacted quite negatively by the actions of one individual from Afghanistan.
MARTÍNEZ: That's former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem, who chairs the Homeland Security Project at Harvard's Kennedy School. Juliette, thanks for sharing some of your Thanksgiving with us.
KAYYEM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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