National guard troops have spent their last days of the summer mulching cherry trees, collecting trash and clearing homeless camps across Washington DC, as Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the capital evolved the guard from makeshift cops to armed jacks of all trades.
More than 2,200 soldiers from states including Mississippi and Louisiana have been stationed across the city since Trump declared a “crime emergency” on 11 August. However, their responsibilities now encompass clearing out Union Station and what officials term “beautification” projects, including trash collection, mulching around cherry trees at the Tidal Basin, and potential graffiti removal.
The crime crackdown has now reportedly netted 1178 arrests and 123 seized firearms, according to a Wednesday morning update from attorney general Pam Bondi. Troops reportedly helped with 84 arrests and confiscated eight firearms Tuesday alone, she added.
A White House official tells the Guardian there were 2,500 national guard and federal law enforcement in the Tuesday night operations, and of the 84 arrests, 40 were undocumented people with arrest records. An estimated 49 homeless encampments have also been broken up since 7 August, the official said.
But it goes much further than just policing. The US department of transportation has assumed management of Union Station, Washington’s main railway terminal, from Amtrak, citing safety concerns and infrastructure needs. Armed guard troops now patrol the transit hub while armed guard troops patrol its concourses, a bleak difference over what was once managed by the national passenger rail service. Amtrak retains control only of passenger areas, while a redevelopment corporation handles retail operations.
And this week, guard members were authorized to carry M4 rifles and M17 pistols under Title 32 authority, though the crews tasked with clean up remain unarmed. All service members can detain suspects but cannot arrest them: that’s left to the police.
But the sight of soldiers doing tasks like landscaping has sparked questions about military priorities. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a former national guard officer himself, has repeatedly demanded the Pentagon focus on “lethality, lethality, lethality” and strip away everything that “distracts” from preparing troops to “fight and win wars”. Yet those same troops are now spending time mulching flower beds and raking leaves.
“I think it’s nice, as a DC resident,” one Guard member told the Washington Post while raking. “But there are different things we could be doing”.
It’s this far reach that’s troubling leaders of other major cities, considering the Trump administration’s indication it may expand similar domestic deployments to places like Chicago, and the wider militarization of civilian law enforcement.
Shrai Popat contributed reporting
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