If you live or work in Washington, the soldiers you have seen on street corners for the past 15 months are about to become harder to miss. The Pentagon has approved marked National Guard patrol cars, military tactical vehicles, patrol boats on the rivers and rifles for troops on some missions. At the same time, the city’s elected leaders are opening a new push to get the troops sent home.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed the changes in two memos dated Oct. 29, a few days before the midterm elections. The Associated Press obtained the memos, and the Pentagon confirmed them on Nov. 5. The memos were first reported by Politico.
Under the new orders, Guard troops can use up to 60 marked patrol cars, tactical vehicles, which Politico reported include Humvees and light medium tactical vehicles, the kind usually seen on battlefields, and up to 20 portable light towers and generators to light up patrol areas at night. Two D.C. National Guard patrol boats will give what one memo calls “operational maritime support.” Near Anacostia in Southeast Washington, the boats are meant to guard the edges of police operations aimed at suspected gang leaders and drug traffickers, according to Politico’s reading of the memo.
Troops who back up anti-gang and drug operations can now carry rifles as well as their usual pistols. Six Guard analysts will keep working on organized drug selling in the city.
There are limits in the memos. The patrol cars must be marked “National Guard,” and troops must be in uniform. Troops may not chase suspects at high speed, and they still cannot arrest anyone or pursue suspects on their own. They support police, who make the arrests. Rifles are not allowed in Metro rail stations. Federal officers must be on board the boats for any arrest, and the boats may not be used to watch U.S. citizens, Politico reported.
The overall size of the force is not growing. Hegseth kept the cap at 3,500 troops, below a peak of about 5,000 during the America 250 celebrations this summer. Nearly 3,100 Guard members from various states are in Washington now, the AP reported, including more than 500 from Georgia and 514 from the District itself. The mission is expected to run through Inauguration Day in January 2029. A Pentagon cost estimate given to Congress put the price of the deployment at roughly $1.4 billion through January 2029, the AP reported in August.
Asked about the memos, the Pentagon said Hegseth “authorized the continued use of National Guard personnel and capabilities in support of the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission,” the White House’s name for the deployment. A Pentagon official said the Oct. 29 guidance allows the patrol cars, tactical vehicles, light towers and boats “in support of federal and local law enforcement operations.” The memos do not say why the expansion is happening now.
The city’s new plan: ask the governors
On the same day the expansion became public, D.C. leaders described their latest plan to end the deployment. The Washington Post reported that D.C. lawmakers intend to call on newly elected Democratic governors to withdraw their states’ Guard troops from the District.
At a Council hearing on Nov. 5, Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who chairs the Council’s public safety committee, urged the incoming governors of Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas to order their troops home on their first day in office. Those five states account for 628 Guard members now stationed in the capital, she said. “I am very hopeful and optimistic that we now have the partners we need at the state and congressional level to push back and demand that this unnecessary, harmful, and unlawful military presence be removed from the district,” Pinto said.
Nothing has been withdrawn. The five governors do not take office until January, none has issued a recall order, and every one of the 628 troops is still in Washington. It is also not clear how the Trump administration would respond if a governor did pull a unit out.
It would not be the first ask. Over the summer, Council members wrote to about 20 governors asking them to bring their troops home by Sept. 1. The Justice Department answered in August: Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald told the Council it has “no power to demand that governors remove” the troops and called the letters politically motivated.
At the hearing, Pinto also pointed to what parents and students have told the Council: troops gearing up with weapons near school entrances and bus stops, and soldiers spotted near ballot drop boxes in October.
A judge already called it illegal. The troops are still here.
The District sued the Trump administration in September 2025, arguing that using soldiers for local police work breaks the Constitution and federal law. On Nov. 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb agreed with the city and issued a preliminary injunction, a court order that blocks the deployment while the case is decided. She paused her own order for 21 days so the government could appeal.
An appeals panel paused the judge’s order again in December 2025, saying the president is likely to win the appeal because Washington is a federal district, not a state, and the president holds what the panel called “unique power” to call out the Guard here. That pause is why the troops can legally stay while the case goes on.
The appeals court heard arguments on Oct. 14, 2026. The Justice Department told the judges the troop presence has helped cut violent crime, and warned that limiting the president’s power over the Guard could hurt future call-ups for inaugurations, protests and natural disasters. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb answered the same day: “It violates the law and the principles on which this country was founded to have the U.S. military policing the streets of any American community, including the District of Columbia.”
The three judges have given themselves no deadline. A ruling could come at any time, and it will decide whether the patrols, now with more cars, boats and rifles, can continue.
What is still unconfirmed: the memos themselves have not been released publicly, so every detail of the new orders comes from news reports of the documents, mainly the AP and Politico. The Pentagon has not said when the patrol cars and boats will first appear on the street. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office declined to comment on Nov. 6. The D.C. National Guard’s public affairs inbox was not accepting email on Nov. 6, but the Joint Task Force for the District later sent the department’s statement, attributed to a War Department official. It confirmed the Oct. 29 guidance and its list of equipment, and it sent questions about mission details to the Office of the Secretary of War. None of the five incoming governors has said whether they will recall their troops. Zark News will update this story if the governors respond.
