President Donald Trump’s decision to flood Washington, DC with National Guard troops and federal agents has set off a firestorm of protests, even as officials point to falling crime numbers. Demonstrators who gathered this week on a pedestrian bridge along I-95 in Virginia compared the move to an “invasion,” saying it threatens the fabric of American democracy.
One woman told Fox News that she felt the military presence was wrong on several levels. “What the problem is, is that these are the National Guard are like my friends’ sons and daughters,” she said. “It’s their time away from their family. The money being wasted to make a point is really sort of disgraceful and un-American because they’re sending them against actual Americans with weapons. And it’s really an invasion. And we’re not Russia, we’re the United States of freaking America.”
The Trump administration announced the expanded policing earlier this month, bringing in not only the National Guard but also federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. Attorney General Pam Bondi followed up with an order directing local officers to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, a direct rebuke to the city’s sanctuary policies.
Bondi celebrated the operation’s results on X, highlighting the scale of the crackdown. “719 arrests and 91 illegal guns seized in Washington, DC Just yesterday we made 40 arrests, took 5 more illegal firearms off our streets, and had 36 ICE arrests—including a suspected MS-13 gang member. Thank you [President Trump] for your unwavering support to make DC safe again!” she posted on Friday morning.
The DC Police Union backed the federal presence, noting that the city had not recorded a single homicide in the past week. For Trump, the numbers provided political ammunition. On Truth Social he declared, “Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job. They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!!”
He went further, directly warning the city’s mayor. “As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory. Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City! Washington D.C. will soon be great again!!!”
But many residents and protesters said the city never needed this level of intervention. One man acknowledged the decline in crime but argued the federal show of force was unnecessary. “I really do believe that we are edging into an area where we are not following the law, where we’re not doing the things that we need to be doing in order to serve the people,” he said.
He added that the results were predictable given the size of the federal deployment. “I’m very happy that crime’s down, and it doesn’t surprise me at all if you’re going to have troops and a lot of people having law enforcement on the streets,” he said. “The problem with this is that we are making an emergency out of something that wasn’t an emergency.”
The divide is clear. While Trump and his allies tout the crime drop as proof their approach works, many Washingtonians see it as heavy-handed and dangerous, setting up a standoff between local leaders and the White House over who controls the nation’s capital.