Troops in DC: Court Fight, Costs, and Armed Patrols

Since August 2025, the National Guard in D.C. has grown from roughly 800 troops to more than 4,800, deployed under a presidential “crime emergency” directive that lets the White House command the capital’s Guard without the mayor’s consent and pull in troops from other states through their governors. A federal judge ruled the deployment unlawful in November 2025, but an appeals court stay has kept troops on the streets while the case is pending, and the mission is currently authorized through the end of 2026.

Why the President Can Deploy Troops in DC Without the Mayor’s Consent

Washington, D.C., sits in a legal position no state occupies. Under the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973, residents elect a mayor and council, but Congress keeps final authority over the District’s budget, can block any local legislation, and can pass laws that apply only to D.C.¹ The District has no voting member of Congress to push back.

The D.C. National Guard compounds that vulnerability. Every state’s Guard answers to a governor. The D.C. Guard answers permanently to the president, and no local consent is needed to activate it.² On August 11, 2025, President Trump used that authority through a memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in the District of Columbia,” declaring a crime emergency and ordering the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the D.C. Guard and coordinate with governors to send more. The memo set no end date, saying the mission would continue until the president determined that “conditions of law and order have been restored.”³

The same day, the president invoked the Home Rule Act to take federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department. That takeover is capped at 30 days and expired on September 10, 2025, without a congressional extension.⁴ The Guard mission continued.

To bring in troops from other states, the administration has used Section 502(f) of Title 32. Under that status, Guard members technically remain under state command but perform a federal mission on federal pay. Legally, this matters because the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars using the military for civilian law enforcement, applies only to troops federalized under Title 10. Guard members in Title 32 status fall outside the prohibition.² Critics at the Brennan Center have called this an “unbounded interpretation” of Title 32 and an end-run around the Insurrection Act, which has historically been the mechanism for using military force in domestic unrest.⁵ The administration has also leaned on a 1989 Office of Legal Counsel memo arguing that D.C. Guard troops can operate in a non-federal “militia” status, further insulating them from Posse Comitatus limits.⁶

What the Troops Actually Do

The operation is branded “D.C. Safe and Beautiful” and runs under Joint Task Force–District of Columbia. Guard members conduct what the military calls “presence patrols” — visible foot and vehicle patrols through neighborhoods, Metro stations, federal landmarks, transit corridors, and school zones — working alongside the Metropolitan Police Department, DHS, the Department of the Interior, and the D.C. Department of Public Works.⁷

Troops do not arrest, search, or run independent law enforcement operations. They do have authority to temporarily detain a person “to prevent imminent harm” and then hand custody to police.⁸ Some Guard members have been deputized as special U.S. Marshal Service deputies.⁹

The mission extends well beyond patrol. Guard members have cleared trash, pruned trees, spread mulch, removed graffiti, and refurbished recreation centers. Since September 2025, teams have collected over 500 tons of debris. The task force also reports 411 medical assists, 192 doses of Narcan administered, 23 lost minors returned, and CPR training provided to more than 2,400 people.⁷

Armed Patrols

On August 22, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that Guard members on security patrols be armed. Troops began carrying M17 pistols, with a small number issued M4 rifles.¹⁰ The task force said weapons were authorized only “as a last resort” against an “imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm,” and that troops on beautification tasks generally remained unarmed. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the armed troops an “armed militia in the Nation’s Capital.”¹¹

How Many Troops, from Where, for How Long

The deployment began with about 800 D.C. Guard members, 680 Army and 130 Air, under Army Col. Larry Doane.⁸ Within weeks it grew to roughly 2,282 members from D.C., Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, Mississippi, and West Virginia.¹¹

By January 2026, about 2,400 troops were in the city, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll signed a memo extending the deployment through the end of 2026. The force then included about 700 D.C. Guard members and roughly 1,900 from 11 other states, with Indiana, Florida, and Oklahoma added to the original list.¹²

In spring 2026, the administration announced a “summer surge” to double the force to 5,000 ahead of America 250 celebrations on July 4.¹³ By late June 2026, more than 4,800 Guard members were on the ground. The summer buildup pulled in troops from states with Democratic governors for the first time: Kentucky and North Carolina each sent one member, Michigan sent over 100, and Minnesota sent 107, with those governors stating their troops were there for America 250 logistics rather than the law enforcement mission. All were listed under Joint Task Force–D.C. numbers, and governors in Kentucky and Michigan disputed how their members were being attributed.¹⁴

The Court Fight

In September 2025, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued, arguing the deployment violated the Constitution and intruded on local authority over law enforcement.⁹ On November 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled the deployment unlawful, finding it undermined the District’s sovereign powers and set a “dangerous precedent” by normalizing military troops for domestic law enforcement.¹⁵

Judge Cobb paused her own order for 21 days to let the administration appeal. On December 17, 2025, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit granted a stay, letting troops remain while the case proceeds. The panel noted its decision rested on a “significantly limited record” and would not bind the merits panel.¹⁶ As of mid-2026, no oral arguments have been scheduled and no merits ruling has been issued.

A separate lawsuit filed in January 2026 in the South Carolina Supreme Court by Democracy Forward and the ACLU challenges Governor Henry McMaster’s authority to send that state’s Guard to D.C., arguing state law limits the governor’s call-up power to war, insurrection, rebellion, invasion, or riot, none of which existed in the District.¹⁷ The court accepted the case in February 2026. Oral argument has not been scheduled.¹⁸

Is It Working, and What Does It Cost?

The administration points to steep drops in crime. During the initial 30-day federal surge from August 7 to September 8, 2025, authorities reported more than 2,100 arrests, 222 firearms seized, 50 homeless encampments dismantled, and 20 suspected gang members arrested. Violent crime fell 39% and homicides dropped 53% compared with the same period in 2024. Carjackings fell 87%.¹⁹

Context complicates those numbers. A CBS News analysis found violent crime was already down roughly 20% in the two weeks before August 7 compared with the same dates in prior years, and arrest totals during the surge (1,094 in the first 19 days) were only marginally higher than the 1,071 recorded in the same period in 2024.²⁰ Mayor Bowser had cited a 26% drop in violent crime year-over-year before troops arrived.²¹

In May 2026, the nonpartisan Niskanen Center published an event-study analysis comparing the deployment with 2022–2024 baselines. The researchers found a 24% reduction in “opportunistic property crimes” (vehicle break-ins and theft) in the tourist areas and transit hubs where troops were concentrated, but no measurable effect on violent crime, which continued a decline that began well before the Guard arrived. The authors credited the broader drop to the Metropolitan Police Department’s own shift toward proactive enforcement, including a roughly 150% increase in narcotics arrests and a doubling of traffic stops between 2022 and 2025.²²²³ White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the study “should not be taken seriously,” citing the task force’s work driving down crime and improving quality of life.

The costs are steep. Niskanen estimated the deployment cost $185 million between August and December 2025 alone, with each Guard member running about $607 per day, compared with about $384 per day for a D.C. police officer. The same $185 million could have funded more than 1,300 “officer-years” of local policing, the researchers wrote.²³²⁴¹⁴²⁵

The Shooting Near the White House

On November 26, 2025, two Guard members patrolling near Farragut Square were shot at 17th and I Streets NW, close to the Farragut West Metro station. Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of the West Virginia Army National Guard, was killed. Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, of the West Virginia Air National Guard, was seriously wounded.²⁶ The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, was arrested at the scene after being wounded. Court documents state he drove from Bellingham, Washington, to the capital and used a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver.²⁷

Lakanwal pleaded not guilty in federal court in February 2026. A superseding indictment in June 2026 expanded the charges to 17 counts, including first-degree armed premeditated murder and attempted murder, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Defense attorneys have argued he suffered from mental illness stemming from service in a CIA-backed paramilitary group in Afghanistan. The next hearing is scheduled for September 2026.²⁸ Immediately after the shooting, President Trump requested 500 more Guard members for D.C., and Secretary Hegseth called the attack a “cowardly, dastardly act.”²⁹

How Residents and the Mayor Have Responded

Reaction in the city has been split. Some residents have welcomed Guard crews cleaning parks and clearing debris. In the Shepherd Park neighborhood, a planned park cleanup set off what local officials described as a “firestorm,” with some residents fearing the troops’ presence and others worrying that accepting the help would signal approval of the broader federal effort.³⁰

Armed patrols have unsettled many residents, particularly in immigrant communities. The presence of masked ICE agents operating alongside Guard members during the initial surge created what Mayor Bowser called “a break in trust between police and community.”³¹ Internal National Guard assessments obtained by the Washington Post said the public perceived the mission as “leveraging fear” and that it was driving a “wedge between citizens and the military,” with some troops and veterans reporting a sense of “shame” about the deployment.³² Court data from the first two weeks of the federal surge showed roughly 80% of defendants in D.C. Superior Court were charged with misdemeanors, warrants, or traffic offenses; only 20% faced felony charges.⁴

Mayor Bowser has threaded a complicated line. Before the deployment, she said no emergency existed to justify a takeover and called White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s comparison of D.C. to a “war-torn country” “hyperbolic and false,” arguing the city needed more federal prosecutors and judges rather than soldiers.²¹ Once the surge began, she credited partnerships with the DEA, ATF, and FBI with a “significant” impact on crime but called the presence of ICE agents and out-of-state Guard troops “not an efficient use of those resources.”³¹ After Judge Cobb’s ruling, Bowser said she was “pleased” and called the decision a move “in the right direction.”³³

Where Things Stand

As of late June 2026, more than 4,800 Guard members patrol Washington, D.C., at a cost exceeding $2.8 million per day. The deployment is authorized through the end of 2026, and the Defense Department has been preparing to extend it through the end of President Trump’s term in 2029.³⁴ District of Columbia v. Trump remains pending before the D.C. Circuit, with no oral arguments scheduled and no merits ruling issued.¹⁶ The South Carolina challenge awaits oral argument.¹⁸ The troops remain on the streets.

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