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WASHINGTON — The National Guard will remain deployed in Washington, D.C., through Inauguration Day 2029 as part of President Trump’s anti-crime mission in the city, unless the president deems otherwise, the Pentagon confirmed to NPR.
The announcement comes as the number of troops in the city has essentially doubled to nearly 5,000 from more than 20 states in recent weeks as part of a “summer surge” of law enforcement announced by federal officials in May.
The current cost of the deployment is more than $3 million per day, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Trump first deployed the National Guard to D.C. in August of 2025 — something the president can do because of the unique status of the city — after declaring a “crime emergency” and launching the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, despite violent crime hitting a 30-year low. The emergency declaration ended a month later, but the task force and troop presence have continued.
The result has been thousands of armed and uniformed National Guard members patrolling residential and business districts of the city for nearly a year, becoming a regular — and controversial — part of the D.C. scenery. Trump has repeatedly touted the drop in crime in the city since, although those trends had started long before the task force was launched. Constitutional experts, former military officers and activists have all expressed concern that the continued presence of troops in the streets of the nation’s capital is a worrying sign of the health of America’s democracy.
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“An emergency is a sudden, unforeseen, and temporary state of affairs. Announcing that an emergency will last for another 2 1/2 years means it’s not an emergency,” says Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of Liberty and National Security at the Brennan Center for Justice.
She worries that, at best, Trump is seeking to normalize the use of the military as a domestic police force, and at worst, he’s envisioning a role for the military during the transition of power to a new president.
“Given what happened in January 2021, that should send up major red flags,” Goitein says, referring to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that year during Trump’s first term.
In a decision that many criticized, Trump did not deploy the D.C. National Guard during that attack.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NPR on the extension of the D.C. mission or why it was deemed necessary.
Like all of Trump’s domestic National Guard deployments, the D.C. deployment has been challenged in court. Late last year, a Federal Appeals Court ruled that it could continue.
No effect on violent crime
More than 20 state governors, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have chosen to send members of their National Guard to D.C. to participate in the task force, although many Democrats on that list have insisted that their troops are only to be used as part of America 250 celebrations this summer.
According to the joint task force, all National Guard members who come to D.C. have been deputized as special police by the U.S. Marshals Service and issued a firearm, which is rare for a domestic National Guard deployment. Guard troops are not authorized to make arrests, although they can detain someone until arresting officers arrive.
The troops in D.C. are largely performing what are called “presence patrols,” walking in small groups around popular areas of the city to act as a deterrent for crime and allow law enforcement to focus on other areas.
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But two different studies — including one out this week by the progressive Center for American Progress — have both found that the National Guard presence in D.C. has had little to no effect on violent crime and that the recent drop in crime would have likely happened regardless of the troops.
“These trends have been going on since before the deployment, since before Trump’s second inauguration even. It should tell people that actually this is not part of the solution,” says Chandler Hall, associate director on the public safety team at CAP and lead researcher of the study.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed the report as “partisan hackery.”
Another study, by the nonpartisan think tank the Niskanen Center, found that the troop patrols have led to a 24% decrease in “opportunistic” crimes — like property crimes and vehicle break-ins — but it comes at a steep cost.
“What the Guard brought was a massive, sudden shock from the visible presence of uniformed military personnel on the streets of Washington almost overnight,” researchers wrote, calling the deployment of the Guard a “blunt and expensive instrument.”
“Guard go home”
Trump has repeatedly hailed the D.C. mission a success, falsely claiming that the city has “almost no crime anymore.”
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted an event in a park in the middle of the city, surrounded by hundreds of troops, thanking them for their service to secure the city.
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“It’s a righteous and beautiful mission,” he said.
As the deployment has continued and the number of troops in the city has ballooned, so has anti-National Guard sentiment. Activists have hung signs on lampposts and walls in well-trafficked corridors telling troops they are not welcome and urging “Guard go home.”
Local D.C. politicians — from members of the city council to Mayor Muriel Bowser — have been clear that they don’t support the deployment, didn’t ask for it and didn’t approve of it. But D.C. doesn’t function in the same way as states, meaning the president has the ultimate authority.
“The fact that National Guard troops are being sent to a jurisdiction without the elected representatives of that jurisdiction even knowing that the troops are coming there, you would never see that happen in any other place in the United States of America,” Ankit Jain, one of D.C.’s two nonvoting senators, told NPR.
He says he often sees the National Guard troops in metro stations, scrolling on their phones and talking to each other.
“I don’t have anything against National Guard troops. I think that they signed up to serve our country, and I don’t think this is a good use of their service,” Jain says.
A ballooning cost
All state troops are in D.C. under Title 32 status, which means they are funded by the federal government, while technically under the control of their respective governors.
As the length of the deployment, as well as the size, increases, so does the cost to taxpayers. With the current summer surge, the cost per day is hovering around $3 million, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Using that number, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonpartisan watchdog, estimates the deployment with this new 2029 extension will cost somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3.4 billion in total, depending on how many troops remain in the city.
“I have seen no indications that they are going to draw down at the end of this summer,” says Virginia Burger, senior defense policy analyst for the Project on Government Oversight, meaning the likely cost will be on the higher end.
And, she points out, that’s if the administration doesn’t add more troops. The number has increased to more than five times the original deployment in less than a year.
“This is a conservative estimate. This doesn’t account for inflation, does not account for increased costs of lodging, food or transportation. This is the most conservative estimate,” Burger says.
