Hundreds of additional National Guard troops are headed to Washington, D.C., from half a dozen Republican-led states, bolstering U.S. President Donald Trump's extraordinary move to flood the Democratic-led city with soldiers and federal agents in what he claims is an effort to fight violent crime.
The Republican governors of Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee agreed to deploy troops to Washington, days after the Republican governors of West Virginia, South Carolina, and Ohio also did so at the Trump administration's request.
Trump has characterized Washington as overrun with violence and homelessness, a description local officials have rejected. Federal and city statistics show violent crime rates have dropped sharply since a spike in 2023, though the city's murder rate remains higher than most other big U.S. cities. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether the city manipulated its statistics to make crime rates appear lower, The Washington Post reported, citing unnamed sources.
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