The District is confronting a sweeping enlargement of federal policing authority as the Trump administration pushes forward with an aggressive expansion of the U.S. Park Police.
What had long been a force dedicated to the protection of monuments, parkland, and federal icons is being rebuilt into something far larger, and Democratic senators say the plan is neither subtle nor benign.
“The administration is on a deliberate hiring spree to exploit the U.S. Park Police’s jurisdiction and turn it into a tool of the president for him and his ideological extremists to impose their will on the streets of D.C.,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) of Oregon, along with Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Their warning followed revelations from internal records that reportedly outline a strategy to transform the Park Police from a specialized agency into a much larger force with expanded presence and purpose in the nation’s capital. The documents described a goal to “establish the U.S. Park Police as the premier law enforcement agency in D.C., capable of keeping D.C. safe regardless of inaction by [the Metropolitan Police Department] (MPD) or inaction by the D.C. City Council.”
The senators detailed far more than a staffing dispute. Their letter listed 21 separate inquiries, demanding explanations on revised hiring standards, the removal of physical and psychological testing, changes in pursuit policy, the authority under which a federal police force could expand its footprint in local policing, and what oversight structures would govern a force that is about to double in size.
They asked whether Park Police officers would begin performing general law enforcement across Washington or remain restricted to National Park Service property.
The senators sought to understand what contracts were being issued, what funds were being used to fuel the surge, which standards had been eliminated, and whether the department intends to expand the force outside Washington in places like San Francisco and New York. The letter pressed for documentation of interagency agreements, use-of-force policies, disciplinary procedures, and the legal justification for creating what they describe as a second police force in the capital.
“There is no psychological testing or physical fitness testing,” the senators wrote. “In fact, applicants are allowed to submit a ‘self-attestation’ in place of an in-person physical fitness test.”
Before Trump returned to power, the ACLU had warned that a second Trump presidency could lead to a dramatic expansion of federal law enforcement power nationwide. Their analysis predicted that the administration would pursue aggressive policing policies, encourage militarized enforcement, roll back oversight, and empower federal agencies to take on expanded roles in major cities. They warned that Trump would seek to strengthen federal policing units and align them more directly with presidential priorities, creating what the organization described as a potential “shorthand message promising repression of the Black community” through expanded federal policing authority.
The Park Police expansion matches those forecasts. It has been accompanied by a rollback of pursuit restrictions, closer structural alignment with the White House, and a hiring model that removes long-standing safeguards in favor of speed and volume.
Interior officials have responded to criticism with combative language of their own.
“It is disgraceful, though not surprising, that the next evolution of the Defund the Police movement is coming from sitting Democrat Senators who are seeking to cut our U.S. Park Police force and risk rising crime in D.C.,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
However, the senators insist the administration has failed to provide a foundation for its claims of necessity. Their letter noted that there is no evidence of increased crime on National Park Service land and no documented threat to national monuments that would justify a hiring wave of this magnitude.
“There is no evidence of an uptick in crime on park service land or increased threats to national monuments,” the senators wrote. “This haste in both a hiring spree and waiving of critical testing and standards are clear signs that the administration is hijacking this federal police force for its own authoritarian purposes.”