National Guard troops that President Trump ordered into Washington, D.C. to deal with crime are being spotted picking up trash near the White House.
The troops, who Trump deployed after declaring a “crime emergency” in the capital, were seen wearing yellow gloves and orange vests over their camouflage uniforms in Lafayette Park across from the White House on Tuesday, according to WTTG-TV.
Joint Task Force-D.C., which has been overseeing the Guard’s operations since Trump deployed the troops, said the service members have been tasked with helping on over 40 “beautification projects” around the city, according to the Washington Post. Officials say the troops were also collecting trash in Lafayette Square, the Tidal Basin, and the National Mall.
While it’s not unusual for troops to be involved in the cleanup of major emergencies, such as civil unrest and natural disasters, their use as gardeners in the wake of a presidential directive has raised questions about whether it is an effective use of resources.
“I think it’s nice, as a D.C. resident,” one Guard member told the Post. “But there are different things we could be doing.” An official with the task force told the outlet that troops involved in the trash collecting won’t be armed, unlike those on other duties in D.C.—including traffic control.
The Daily Beast has contacted both the White House and Joint Task Force-D.C. for further comment.
The White House claims over 1,000 arrests have been made during the crackdown in D.C., which has also involved federal law enforcement being sent out onto the streets. Local officials have protested the move, citing data showing that crime is at a 30-year low in the city.
Trump’s plans are also facing pushback in the D.C. federal courthouse. Grand jurors on three occasions this month have refused prosecutors’ push to indict one woman accused of assaulting an FBI agent, while a federal magistrate judge said another arrest in D.C. stemmed from the “most illegal search I’ve seen in my life,” according to the Post. The judge also said another arrest had lacked “basic human dignity.”
Much of the work being carried out by the Guards would normally fall under the remit of the National Park Service, which, despite struggling for staff before the Trump administration, has suffered at the hands of federal cuts.
One official with the Park Service said it once had 200 people working in the gardens in D.C.—now it has 20. “It’s everybody — the masons, the maintenance workers, the groundskeepers, the plumbers. Every shop is short,” they told the Post.
Sean Parnell, spokesperson for the Pentagon, told the newspaper that the Defense Department “is incredibly proud of our D.C. National Guardsmen and their work to make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Again.”
In a Truth Social post earlier this month, Trump vowed to make D.C. “more beautiful than it ever was before” while also ordering homeless people in the city to immediately “move out.” His post included pictures of tents that appear to have been taken from his motorcade while driving from the White House to his golf club in Virginia.
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