One year later: More than 500 Georgia National Guard troops remain in D.C.
WASHINGTON — As the black van edged its way down the street in front of Wheatley Education Campus, a pre-K-8 school buffered by row homes, the parents and activists gathered on the sidewalk began to chant loudly.
“Guard. Out. Now.”
Jaime Fearer, who has a third grader at the school, took out her phone and approached the vehicle. She snapped a photo through the tinted windows and zoomed in. The patch on the arm of one of the National Guard troops inside confirmed what she suspected.
The troops were from Georgia.
Fearer and the others kept shouting until the van was out of sight. She is among the Washington residents who believe that President Donald Trump never justified the “crime emergency” that was the pretext for activating the D.C. National Guard in the city last August. Governors from many states, including Georgia, answered the president’s call and sent soldiers to boost the surge.
The White House says it has paid off in lower crime rates and a safer, more beautiful capital. Trump has extended the deployment through January 2029.
Local Washington elected officials and residents say crime was already down and the presence of troops is ineffective and unnecessary. Fearer said the guard members, who are sometimes paired with Homeland Security agents or immigration officers, have intimidated and unsettled residents.
“If people need help in Georgia, their guardsmen should be there in Georgia,” Fearer said. “We do not need them here. We do not want them here. It feels like we are a colony that is under some kind of military occupation.”
Gov. Brian Kemp signed an order on Sept. 5, 2025, deploying hundreds of Georgia Army and Air National Guard members to Washington. Now at the one-year mark, the 3,142 soldiers in Washington include 531 from Georgia, according to a Tuesday report by the federal joint task force. That’s the largest contingent of any state.
The guard members who raise their hands to be sent to Washington receive military pay and per diem for food, and they are housed in local hotels. The federal government, using taxpayer dollars, shoulders all of the costs — an estimated $607 per day per troop, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That means at current levels, the annual cost of the deployment is about $696 million.
In July, once America 250’s biggest celebrations concluded, the D.C. City Council sent letters to dozens of governors asking them to recall any service members stationed in Washington. Several Democrats obliged, but the Republican governors, including Georgia’s Brian Kemp, did not respond. A second letter to Kemp marking one year since the deployment began is now in the works.
The Free DC project, which launched after Republicans in Congress rolled back crime policies implemented by Washington’s leaders, has become a vocal critic of the National Guard’s presence on city streets. The organization sponsors rallies to bring attention to the issue and sends volunteers to monitor polling places and schools where guardsmen have been spotted.
Karen “KD” Degraphenreid is a Georgia native and Air Force veteran who now lives in Washington and is part of Free DC. She said Georgians should care about the deployment because what happens in the nation’s capital can be duplicated anywhere.
“Just how it’s happening here, it might happen to y’all too,” she said. “And it shouldn’t happen. This is not the mission of National Guard.”
A Georgia Army National Guard member who lives in Macon was arrested last week and charged with pointing his service weapon at a fellow guard member during an argument while they were on break from patrol. Zion Mitchell faces one count of assault with a dangerous weapon and another of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
He is currently being held in D.C.’s jail without bond. A spokesperson for the Georgia Guard said the allegations are being taken seriously and there is full cooperation with Washington authorities.
Keya Chatterjee, an organizer with Free DC, pointed out that the incident happened just blocks away from the Wheatley school in a black van just like the one activists saw.
“This is outrageous and one of many reasons that Gov. Kemp should immediately remove his troops from D.C. schools and streets, and why gubernatorial candidates should clearly state whether, as commander in chief, they would remove Georgia troops,” Chatterjee said.
Kemp’s office, in response to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s questions about the deployment, pointed back to his original statement from a year ago. “Georgia is proud to stand with the Trump administration in its mission to ensure the security and beauty of our nation’s capital,” he said at the time.
The governor’s office did not respond when asked if he had agreed to keep troops in Washington through 2029 as Trump has requested. That decision will likely fall to his successor, either Republican Rick Jackson or Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Both said that if elected, they would conduct a review of the deployment. But where Jackson applauded the presence of Georgia troops in Washington, Bottoms questioned it.
“As governor, I will make sure our National Guard members are focused on protecting and serving the people of Georgia and supporting Americans during genuine emergencies — not theatrical, extended tours of duty that use our service members as political props,” she said.
A spokesperson for Jackson said he applauded the presence of Georgia soldiers and airmen in Washington and believes the mission should be supported.
“Rick is grateful to the members of Georgia’s National Guard who have spent the past year serving in our nation’s capital,” spokesperson Garrison Douglas said. “As governor, he would support these volunteers who keep our communities safe because they deserve a governor who backs them, not one who second-guesses them from a distance.”
Guard members, often transported around the city in unmarked vans, patrol in small groups on foot or post up at high-traffic areas like public transit stations. They wear the same camouflage uniforms but can be distinguished by studying the patches on their arms. The boar’s head is the symbol of the Georgia National Guard, a reference to the insignia of James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony.
The Niskanen Center, a nonprofit think tank, found that the initial surge of guard members in Washington last year had “no measurable impact” on violent crime, which was already on the downturn after the coronavirus pandemic. There was a slight improvement in the rate of property crimes, known as crimes of opportunity.
The Joint Task Force recently recognized 12 Georgia guard members for their help during Freedom 250 celebrations in Washington this summer. Two of them were commended for helping reunite a lost child with his family; another had “tackled paperwork, pay and personnel challenges.”