National Guard Orders in D.C. Expected to Be Extended for Months

The Washington Post

16:35 JST, September 4, 2025

The Trump administration is expected to approve an extension of U.S. troops’ deployment in D.C. that could stretch until Dec. 31, to ensure that National Guard forces sent to the capital are mobilized long enough to receive the full complement of service-related benefits, said two people familiar with the matter.

National Guard officials are assessing the list of troops deployed to support Joint Task Force-D.C. to ensure everyone was on at least 30-day orders, one of the people said, and the extension to Dec. 31 is intended to ensure that anyone rotating in to replace those here now also would be covered for 30 days of active-duty service. It’s unlikely the military will remain in the city that long, the second person said. The two people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move before it is finalized.

The Pentagon referred questions to the White House, which declined to address the extension beyond saying in a statement that the president “is committed to the long-term safety and security of Washington, D.C., for its residents and visitors.”

When National Guard service members – who are civilians often with full-time jobs – are activated for federal service, they can qualify for military benefits such as health care and housing payments. That largely depends on if they’ve served on active duty for 30 days or more. If orders only go to 29 days, then their time deployed does not count toward those benefits.

The Pentagon has sometimes used cycles of 29-day orders to avoid paying out additional benefits.

President Donald Trump announced he was deploying Guard troops to D.C. on Aug. 11, and the first soldiers, from the D.C. National Guard, started processing in a few days later. Those first troops, many of whom are commuting in daily from their homes, will hit their initial 30 days on deployment next week.

The troops have been serving on armed foot patrols and maintaining a visible presence, contributing, officials claim, to a 61 percent drop in crime compared with the same time frame a year ago.

But the city also has been quiet enough that troops have been seen bored on their phones and participating in local trash collection, mulching and groundskeeping, which has raised questions among critics of the deployment as to whether this is the best use of the armed forces, many of whom have been pulled from full-time jobs to fulfill service obligations.

According to a daily roundup compiled by the Joint Task Force, as of Tuesday the Guard had “cleaned more than 3.2 miles of roadways, collected more than 677 bags of trash, and disposed of five truckloads of plant waste in coordination with the U.S. National Park Service.”

There are roughly 2,200 National Guard troops in the capital now, about 900 of whom come from the D.C. National Guard and another 1,300 who are on orders from West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee.