The Republican governors of West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio announced Saturday they will send National Guard troops to Washington, DC, in an escalation of President Donald Trump’s efforts to federally take over law enforcement in the city.

The city’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit calling for an emergency restraining order to block the move, accusing the Trump Administration of implementing a “hostile takeover” of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) that would lead to “imminent, irreparable harm”.

The moves come as federal agents and National Guard troops have begun to appear across the heavily Democratic city after President Trump's executive order earlier this week.

The National Guard presence in D.C. is set to increase in the coming days after the governors of some Republican states deployed troops to the capital.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump deployed 800 National Guard troops to the streets of Washington, DC, a rare flex of his presidential authority over the military while a court mulls the legality of his prior order sending troops to Los Angeles.

White House official says to expect "significantly higher National Guard presence” in Washington, D.C. Wednesday evening.

Residents in one Washington, D.C., neighborhood lined up to protest the increased police presence after the White House said the number of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital would ramp up and federal officers would be on the streets around the clock.

For a city whose population is 41% Black, D.C.’s homeless population is disproportionately Black, at 82.5%. Compare that to the city’s white population: 39.6%, with 6.6% homeless, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Sixty percent of all homeless people are men.