The Trump administration has extended its National Guard mission in the nation’s capital into 2026, keeping thousands of troops stationed across the city and prompting renewed outrage from District officials and civil rights leaders.
The move, announced just days after Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed she would deploy 100 additional Guardsmen from her state, further entrenches what many describe as a federal occupation of the predominantly Black city.
According to several reports, more than 2,300 National Guard members, nearly 1,000 from D.C. and the remainder from at least seven Republican-led states, will remain through February 2026 under orders signed by President Donald Trump.
The troops, operating under Title 32 authority, continue to patrol federal parks, Metro stations, and major streets despite growing calls for withdrawal. The deployment was originally scheduled to end in November.
The District government has condemned the ongoing presence as unlawful and dangerous. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a sweeping federal lawsuit accusing the administration of violating the Home Rule Act and the Posse Comitatus Act by militarizing D.C. without consent from Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The 52-page complaint argues that Trump’s actions “threaten the core principle of local self-government” and amount to an “illegal federal occupation.”
Schwalb added that, “Deploying the National Guard to engage in law enforcement is not only unnecessary and unwanted, but dangerous and harmful to the District and its residents.”
Bowser, who earlier described the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department as “unsettling and unprecedented,” has struggled to maintain any authority over local law enforcement. Trump’s August executive order placed the MPD under federal control and authorized Guardsmen to perform policing duties, including detentions and street patrols.
“This move strips away our city’s right to direct its own policing,” Bowser said in August.
The Arkansas deployment, part of what the Pentagon describes as a “rotational relief” for existing units, will include members of the 142nd Field Artillery Brigade. “Arkansas’ Guardsmen are there when we need them,” Sanders proclaimed. “To keep our nation’s capital safe. I am thankful to President Trump for cleaning up crime.”
The mission, expected to last several months, is federally funded and will assign soldiers to “security presence patrols” throughout Washington.
However, D.C. residents and officials argue that the federal rationale, citing crime and unrest, is contradicted by record-low violent crime data and an absence of local requests for assistance.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has warned that the show of force “emboldens law enforcement officers to operate with unchecked violence,” while civil rights advocates stress that the District’s lack of statehood leaves it uniquely vulnerable to presidential overreach.
Legal observers have noted that a ruling on the District’s lawsuit is pending, but even if the court orders a temporary suspension, the administration could reissue deployment orders under the guise of national security. Meanwhile, the Guard’s presence has already taken on a quasi-permanent character. A leaked memo confirmed plans to station “quick reaction forces” in all 50 states and to create a specialized military police battalion inside Washington itself.
For many longtime Washingtonians, the sight of armed soldiers at Metro stops and neighborhood intersections evokes deep anger and fear.
“No American jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation,” the city’s lawsuit states.