What’s going on with the National Guard in D.C.?

As part of his broader plan to crack down on D.C.’s supposed violent crime emergency, President Trump deployed the National Guard last week. So far those troops have largely been seen standing around – often in questionable places if their mission is to combat crime. But their manpower and mission may soon be evolving. 

As Washingtonians navigate this new reality, we’ve compiled some of the most frequent questions we’ve gotten on the presence of the National Guard in D.C. – and what we might expect in the weeks to come.

How many National Guard troops are on D.C.’s streets?

What started as a limited deployment of local troops has expanded somewhat dramatically this week.

When he first declared the crime emergency on Aug. 11, President Trump deployed 800 members of the D.C. National Guard – soldiers who live in the city or the greater region (that’s a third of the total force). But he also hinted that more troops from a variety of states would follow, and that is coming to pass this week. 

West Virginia is sending between 300 and 400 Guard members, South Carolina is adding 200 more, Ohio is providing 150 military police, Louisiana is sending 135 of its own, 200 are coming from Mississippi, and Tennessee is volunteering 160. Critics have pointed out that parts of those states have far more serious crime problems than D.C.; by one account, there are more than 64 cities across those five states that have higher crime rates than the District.

All told, that will put the total number of National Guard troops in D.C. at more than 2,000. 

Why deploy the National Guard?

First off, because the president can. Unlike in the 50 states, D.C.’s mayor has no direct control over the D.C. National Guard – only the president does (in more normal times, Washington’s mayors have requested their presence). When Trump similarly deployed the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles, legal fights ensued over the extent of his authority to do so. There’s no such risk in D.C. 

Even before he took office, Trump had an informal playbook for how he could seize more control of D.C., according to the Washington Post, which reported that the only real questions were when and how he would choose to exercise his authority.  

Sending in the troops is exactly the type of visual show of force Trump wants to make clear who’s in charge. Now, he has also deployed some 800 federal law enforcement officers, who have been much more present and active over the last week (they have made more than 600 arrests since the surge began, about half of which are related to immigration enforcement, according to the White House). But the National Guard brings with it military hardware and uniforms – and the president loves both. (See parade, military.)

Is this the first time the National Guard has been deployed in D.C.?

Nope. 

According to the Congressional Research Service, the National Guard – or similar federal forces – was deployed to respond to violence or anticipated violence in the city 10 times between the early 1800s and 2020. That figure, though, predates their deployment during the summer of 2020 (when 5,000 troops were sent to D.C. to respond to the Black Lives Matter protests) and after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, and doesn’t include other periodic moments when the D.C. National Guard has been called up for big events or natural disasters.

But using the National Guard to respond to localized crime is much more novel – though not entirely unprecedented. When D.C. faced the growing crack crisis in 1989, then-mayor Marion Barry requested – and was granted – a deployment of 250 D.C. National Guards members to help the police with clerical work, crowd control, equipment, and intelligence analysis. The troops did not patrol city streets or make any arrests, though.

"We're fighting an unconventional war. We cannot use conventional methods,” Barry said at the time.

Barry’s successor, Sharon Pratt Kelly, similarly pushed for the National Guard to be deployed in D.C. in 1993, but in a more active patrolling role. Recall that those were the years when D.C. was referred to as the nation’s murder capital; 1993 saw 454 killings. Our most recent high was 274 in 2023. 

President Bill Clinton rejected her request, though, on legal and procedural grounds. 

What is the National Guard actually doing here?

While nominally deployed to assist local and federal police address what Trump claims is a dire crime emergency, so far the National Guard’s actual presence has been limited.

Troops (and their respective heavy military vehicles) have been spotted outside Union Station and by the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial – hardly the city’s high-crime areas. Over the weekend, the Department of Defense posted a picture on X of a military vehicle standing in front of Union Station with the caption, “This We’ll Defend.” (That, predictably, prompted a flood of snarky responses: “Thank you for defending the local Lululemon!” “Where were you during the Battle of the Union Station turnaround?” And so many more.) 

On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance visited Union Station to greet members of the National Guard and defend their presence at the transit hub. “Crime is extremely high right here in Union Station. You have vagrants, you have drug addicts, you have the chronically homeless, you have the mentally ill who harass, who threaten violence, who attack families and they have done it for far too long. This should be a monument to American greatness,” he said, using much of the same harsh and dystopian language that conservatives have been using to describe D.C. as a whole.

The Guard’s presence, though, has been slowly expanding. Guard members were spotted at a number of Metro stations earlier this week (they will be patrolling a total of 10 stations, all but one of which are in central or nightlife areas), and on Tuesday they were seen posted around Chinatown and near Nationals Park. 

The limited role (at least for now) is intentional; the troops are meant to “assist federal and local law enforcement agencies with community safety patrols, traffic control points, and crowd flow support,” according to a spokesman. That’s probably a relief for some D.C. residents – who have raised concerns about troops trying to enforce the law – but also a point of criticism.

“The vast majority of them are just going to… stand around. They are not trained [for] law enforcement,” tweeted Daniel Hodges, a D.C. police officer and former member of the National Guard. “Extremely expensive photo op, and you're paying for it.”

Speaking of which, how much is this costing and who’s paying for it? How long is it going to last?

Unlike Trump’s move to take some control over MPD – which is limited by law to 30 days, unless Congress extends it – the National Guard could become a much more permanent presence in the city. That’s because Trump directly controls the D.C. National Guard, and as such he can order it to remain in place for as long as he wants. (The only potential limits would have to come from the courts.)   

“The activation will remain in place until the president determines that conditions of law and order have been restored in D.C.,” a spokesman for the D.C. National Guard told us.

The federal government will be picking up the tab for both the D.C. and state-based National Guard deployments, and the exact amount will ultimately be determined by how many and how long the troops stay.  

But for some reference, back in 2020, two officials told Reuters that it cost about $530 a day for each Guard member who was deployed. Not taking into account inflation or other increased costs, if that figure held today, it would cost more than $1 million dollars a day for 2,000 troops to patrol the city. Another analysis by a nonpartisan research group also put the figure at upwards of $1 million a day at the current level of activation.    

Dennis Jing, who served as a logistics officer for the D.C. National Guard from 2016 to 2022, says deployments like these are a “huge lift” – and one that weighs on people who often have day jobs and lives that they are leaving when called to duty.

“They've basically uprooted the civilian day-to-day lives of hundreds of people from all across the DMV region,” he writes The 51st in an email. 

Is the National Guard armed? Can they make arrests?

Whether or not the National Guard in D.C. will be armed has been a prevailing question since the deployment started – but one for which there still isn’t a clear answer.

“Guard members may be armed consistent with their mission and training,” a Guard spokesman told us. To date, the Guard members seen around D.C. – including those walking in and around Metro stations – have not been visibly carrying guns, though that could always change. (Reporting indicates that troops are actively preparing to be armed, should the president demand it.)

The National Guard isn’t allowed to make arrests at this point, spare exceptional circumstances (“if necessary to protect yourself and others from imminent threat of bodily harm,” per a guide handed out to members of the D.C. National Guard). One such example took place last Friday, when a guardsmen patrolling the National Mall detained a man who was allegedly assaulting a U.S. Park Police officer during a traffic stop. 

Of course, plenty of experts have raised concerns over the legal authorities the National Guard will be operating under – and the type of training Guard members received before arriving in D.C. for this deployment. And there are also more practical risks: On Wednesday morning, a 14-ton mine-resistant military vehicle in a National Guard convoy crashed into a regular car in Capitol Hill, sending that driver to the hospital. (Fact check: D.C.’s criminals have not been known to use land mines.)

What’s the upside to having the National Guard here?

There are certainly people who are happy to see the presence of the National Guard out and about in D.C., arguing that it provides a basic visual deterrent to would-be criminals. In fact, there have been neighborhood activists and elected officials in certain areas (including Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White) who have been calling for such a deployment for years, saying it could offer D.C. police – who are stretched thin – additional support. When the Guard was deployed in the late 1980s at the request of local officials, it was for that very purpose – to free up more officers to hit the street, while Guard members took over logistical duties. 

That being said, a recent Washington Post poll found that almost 80% of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s moves in the city – including his deployment of the National Guard.

What are the criticisms?

You can break them down into the practical and the political.

On the practical side, the National Guard isn’t intended for law enforcement. Guard members don’t investigate crimes and they don’t know the lay of the criminal landscape (especially those troops coming in from beyond the D.C. region), so critics question the value of having them deployed around the city. 

Additionally, while the National Guard was deployed to assist law enforcement, it is, in some cases, using law enforcement resources. MPD vehicles and officers, for example, have had to escort convoys of military vehicles as they travel through the city. 

That, though, ties into the political arguments against having the National Guard here. Plenty of people say Trump sent them in as a theatrical show of force. How else to explain having six heavy military vehicles outside Union Station at all hours, or posting the National Guard around the National Mall? Even some residents who are otherwise supportive of the idea of having federal support in the fight against crime have said that they have seen no Guard members in the neighborhoods suffering the worst crime. (The White House has responded to criticisms that it isn’t focusing on places with the highest rates of crime by releasing vague numbers that show half of arrests by federal authorities are in wards 7 and 8 – but, as discussed earlier, the guard isn’t generally making arrests.)   

The political objections to deploying the National Guard in D.C. were succinctly summarized by an aide to Vermont’s Governor Phil Scott, a Republican who rejected the Trump administration’s request that he also send a contingent of troops to the city.

“While public safety is a legitimate concern in cities across the country and certainly in the nation’s capital, in the absence of an immediate emergency or disaster that local and regional first responders are unable to handle, the governor … does not view the enforcement of domestic law as a proper use of the National Guard,” Scott’s aide told Vermont Public Radio. “Because it is being hyperpoliticized, the governor doesn’t feel like – and I believe the vast majority of Vermonters don’t feel like – it would be an acceptable and appropriate use of the National Guard.”

What are D.C.’s elected officials saying?

In short, they’re not happy about it.

Over the weekend, Mayor Muriel Bowser took to her personal X account to register her displeasure with the National Guard’s presence in D.C. “American soldiers and airmen policing American citizens on American soil is #UnAmerican,” she wrote.

And earlier this week, Bowser expounded on that point. “The question is why the military would be deployed in an American city,” she said to reporters. 

Attorney General Brian Schwalb has similarly come out against having the National Guard in D.C. “Let us be clear: armed soldiers should not be policing American citizens on American soil,” he wrote on X. “Instead of making D.C. more secure, it undermines public safety and endangers our democracy. It’s D.C. today, but the same dangerous strategy can be deployed to occupy any American community.”

And there’s also the longstanding frustration that, unlike in any of the 50 states, the District’s mayor has no formal control over the National Guard. “[This] couldn’t be done in neighboring states,” Bowser said.

On the more lighthearted (yet pointed) side of things, on Monday At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson posted a video of herself walking amongst the Guard members deployed along parts of the National Mall. 

“This is not what I would consider a high violent crime area,” she said while walking along the Tidal Basin. “I think the big question we should be asking the governors of West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina is: what are your troops actually going to be doing here? Because the current ones are not doing a lot."