The deployment of National Guard troops in the US capital, Washington, DC, was declared illegal by a federal court. The court said authorities had exceeded the limits of their legal authority.
Such units should not be activated by the US government without explicit request from local authorities. According to the court ruling, the government should not send the National Guard from other states to the capital for police purposes.
For these reasons, the National Guard deployment in Washington must end, the court ruled. However, they delayed the implementation of this order for three weeks to give the administration under President Donald Trump a chance to appeal. Therefore, the order will only come into effect on December 11.
Trump had assigned troops to the capital in August to fight crime that was expected to rise there. However, crime statistics do not support this claim. The city sued over the operation. Trump also deployed the National Guard to patrol other cities. Several legal proceedings are ongoing due to the operation.
Operations in Washington cost about a million dollars a day
Typically, the National Guard, a reserve unit of the US military, is under the command of the respective state governors. However, in exceptional cases, the president may assume command. Since Washington, DC is not part of the federal state, special rules apply here.
National Guard units are usually deployed domestically during natural disasters, riots, or other emergencies. In the past, presidents have also sometimes used it to enforce certain federal laws when certain states refused to do so, as in the case of anti-segregation laws in the 1950s.
According to media reports, about 2,300 National Guard troops are currently deployed in Washington. According to Cobb, they are expected to remain in the city until the end of February 2026. According to CNN, the cost of doing this is estimated to be around one million dollars (867,100 euros) per day.
