The legal tug-of-war over Washington’s streets took another sharp turn, as a federal appeals court stepped in and allowed the National Guard’s presence in the capital to keep growing rather than wind down.
A brief order from the D.C. Circuit wiped away a lower court’s instruction that Guard units must clear out by December 11. With that injunction on ice—for now—the administration’s summer-launched deployment remains firmly in place, bolstered even further after the November 26 shooting that left two Guard members wounded just steps from the White House. One later died.
The challenge driving this courtroom clash comes from the District’s attorney general, who argues that the White House has tried to swallow the city’s policing authority whole, crossing legal lines that sharply limit the role of troops in domestic law enforcement. The administration has brushed those accusations aside as political theatre, insisting the president needs no local permission to station troops in the capital.
For months, more than 2,000 Guard members—hailing from the District itself and a patchwork of states including Georgia, Alabama, and West Virginia—have patrolled Washington as part of the president’s sweeping crime-and-immigration campaign aimed squarely at Democratic-run cities.
A federal judge had earlier concluded that the deployment was likely unlawful, blocking it but delaying that ruling long enough for an appeal. Instead of scaling back, the administration surged 500 additional troops into the city after the shooting, which officials called a targeted attack. Charges against a 29-year-old Afghan national quickly became political fuel, prompting fiery calls to shut down migration from what the president labeled “third-world countries.”
The legal stakes stretch beyond Washington. Similar battles are unfolding in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, where local governments argue that troop deployments amount to punitive political theatre dressed up as public safety. Several trial courts have sided against the administration, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in soon on the Chicago case—an opinion that could send shockwaves through every other city bracing for or fighting federal troop presence.
For now, though, the Guard stays put in the nation’s capital—boots on the ground, and a legal storm gathering right above them.
