National Guard personnel deployed in the nation’s capital to stop crime will remain through the 2029 inauguration, Pentagon officials said.
National Guard troops were first deployed in August 2025 “to support local and federal law enforcement efforts aimed at restoring order in the District of Columbia,” according to the Guard’s website.
A Pentagon official told WJLA-TV last Friday that the department “remains committed supporting the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and our Federal law enforcement partners until law and order are fully restored in our Nation’s Capital. The D.C. Safe and Beautiful Mission has been extended to Jan. 20, 2029, or until terminated by the President.”
As of July 8, there were over 5,100 National Guard troops present in the District of Columbia.
The troops’ mission is split between states that have sent troops to fight crime and states that sent troops to provide “support for Freedom 250 and associated summer events in the National Capital Region” from May through the end of August, per the District of Columbia National Guard website.
It costs $607 per National Guard soldier per day to keep them deployed in the District of Columbia, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
City officials remain opposed to the presence of National Guard troops, though.
A lawsuit filed by District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb to remove them was overturned on appeal, though litigation is ongoing.
“My understanding is that there’s going to be some sort of proceeding in September, and so the city is still litigating that we don’t want these National Guard troops from other states here,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said, according to WRC-TV.
Council member Janeese Lewis-George, the Democratic candidate for the mayoralty in November, said that “our National Guard needs to be used, utilized for national emergencies, and not in this way,” according to WTOP.
The federal government has much more power over both its conduct in the District and the use of the D.C. National Guard than it does over cities like Minneapolis or Chicago and over the states’ respective National Guards.
