On Monday, August 11, 2025, President Donald J. Trump announced that he was federalizing D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and deploying the National Guard to fight crime in Washington, D.C. This unprecedented action stripped city leadership of the ability to make its own decisions about law enforcement and made D.C. a testing ground for tactics that President Trump foreshadowed he would use across the country. Micromanaging the day-to-day affairs of D.C. is not what voters elected the president and members of Congress to accomplish.

Under Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, the president can only take over the District’s police for “federal purposes” during “special conditions of an emergency.” In the Executive Order, President Trump declared that “crime is out of control in the District of Columbia” and as such required the mayor to provide MPD for federal purposes, including “maintaining law and order in the Nation’s seat of Government.”

• While the initial order to federalize MPD only lasts for 48 hours, President Trump notified Congress, per the statute, to extend this order for 30 days.
• Per the Home Rule Act, any control lasting more than 30 days would need congressional approval. Congress would have to pass a joint resolution allowing the president to extend the emergency. D.C. Code § 1–207.40(d)
  • Joint resolutions typically are subject to the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate, which would require the measure to have Democratic support to pass.
• The emergency can be ended by a Congressional joint resolution.

The President also released a memorandum on “Restoring Law and Order in the District of Columbia,” which mobilized 800 soldiers from the D.C. National Guard to support law enforcement efforts across the city. The memorandum directed the Secretary of Defense to “mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service... to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital,” and the mobilization of these soldiers “remain in effect until [President Trump] determine[s] that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia.”

Unlike states and other U.S. territories, the District of Columbia does not control its own National Guard, as there is no Governor. The president can activate the D.C. National Guard with unchecked authority, as he did in 2020 when President Trump ordered the National Guard to confront unprovoked racial justice protesters in the District, and did not do on January 6, 2021. In 2020, military helicopters were deployed to intimidate crowds and federal officers– shielded from the accountability that local police face–used chemical irritants and rubber bullets, which injured and traumatized residents. ACLU-D.C. sued on behalf of one of the demonstrators and obtained a favorable settlement, but presidential power over the D.C. National Guard remains. With the new announcement, the President openly encouraged law enforcement to “do whatever the hell they want” when they’re in D.C., which will disproportionately impact Black, Brown, and unhoused communities across the District.

All the people who live, work, and visit D.C. deserve safety and security. But the president micromanaging the local police force and failed methods to address crime will not get us there.

The truth is that crime in the District does not rise to the level of an emergency that requires the president’s attention. According to MPD, violent crime is down 26% this year after a 35% drop in 2024, and overall crime in D.C. is down 7%. Like many other moments of micromanaging D.C., threatening a D.C. “takeover” is not about safety. It’s yet another attempt to use one incident as an excuse for a broad overreach of power. This threat should concern everyone across the country because D.C. can be viewed as a testing ground and is the canary in the coal mine to see what could be implemented elsewhere.

History before D.C. Home Rule has shown that the federal government struggled to provide services and public safety in the District. And the commissioners and members of Congress constantly heard about their failures from District residents. By the time the D.C. Home Rule Act passed, federal commissioners and members of Congress were more than happy to give up the responsibility of micromanaging D.C. in addition to the things their voters elected them to accomplish.

If we want our communities to be safe, the federal government should:

• Restore the $1 billion of local D.C. tax dollars that Congress nonsensically barred the District from using earlier this year by passing S. 1077, the District of Columbia Local Funds Act of 2025.
• Remove the wasteful, inefficient, and harmful budget riders they’re proposing, that would bar the District from collecting revenue from automated tickets. That money could help the District invest in education, supporting families, and programs that give young people options for safe and pro-social things to do.
• Support H.R. 51/S. 51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act, which would grant D.C. statehood and equal representation to Washingtonians.