National Guard deployment in Washington DC extended till February 28

The Washington DC National Guard will be deployed to the nation's capital through the end of February, according to formal orders reviewed by The Associated Press.

The formal order, dated Nov 4, extends the original order from Aug 11 and says the Guard members will be in the city at least through Feb 28. The order states the additional duty is in response to the emergency declared in August by President Donald Trump and under directions from the Secretary of War to protect federal property and functions in the District of Columbia and to support federal and District law enforcement.

Hundreds of National Guard troops have been in Washington since August, which launched what Trump said was a crime-fighting mission that also included the federal takeover of the local police department.

That order expired in September, but the roughly 2,000 National Guard troops from DC and at at least eight states remain in the city, with most contingents saying they plan to withdraw by the end of November.

The DC National Guard is the single largest contributor of troops with 949 soldiers that make up the task force that totals 2,375 troops. West Virginia is the next largest state to contribute troops to the task force with 416 guardsmen.

Some have been armed and providing a military presence in public spaces, especially in the federal parks around the city and at subway stations as well as the Amtrak train station.

The National Guard task force appears to have spent a large portion of its time on yardwork and landscaping efforts around the nation's capital.

In an update provided in early October, task force officials boasted that troops cleared 1,150 bags of trash, spread 1,045 cubic yards of mulch, removed 50 truckloads of plant waste, cleared 7.9 miles of roadway, painted 270 feet of fencing and pruned 400 trees.

Since then, most daily updates from the task force only offered new troop figures and no summaries of beautification efforts.

One segment of the DC Guard has worked with various neighbourhoods on beautification efforts at the request of local neighbourhood officials and residents.

The presence of guard members in the city is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit, filed Sept 4 by DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging the Trump administration's use of the National Guard in the heavily Democratic city.

That lawsuit sparked filings by 45 states with 23 supporting the Trump administration and 22 aligning with Washington. The Trump administration has argued that he has full authority to deploy guard troops in Washington because he is the designated commander of the DC Guard.

In court papers filed by Schwalb seeking to have the guard removed from the city, the documents indicated that there were plans for the DC Guard to potentially remain in the city at least through next summer.

US District Judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, heard arguments Oct 24 on Schwalb's request but reached no decision.

It's unclear how long the other states, which currently include Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and Alabama, will keep their troops deployed to the task force in Washington.

Several of the states told the AP they planned to end their deployments by Nov 30 but indicated that also depended on whether orders were issued extending their deployments. The order does not mention the other states.