(C) Arizona Mirror This story was originally published by Arizona Mirror and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Federal appeals judges allow Trump’s National Guard deployment to D.C., for now [1] ['Ashley Murray', 'Jennifer Shutt', 'Shauneen Miranda', 'More From Author', 'December', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2025-12-17 WASHINGTON — A U.S. appeals court ruled Wednesday that National Guard troops can remain in the District of Columbia while the judges take up the case that began when the district sued the Trump administration for deploying roughly 2,000 troops to the nation’s capital. Pointing to the district’s special status as a federal territory, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found President Donald Trump would likely succeed in his administration’s argument to keep federalized National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. Wednesday’s ruling means the guard troops from the District of Columbia and nine states will continue patrolling Washington, D.C., through February, unless the appeals judges find a lower court order against the mobilization to be correct. Guard members have been deployed to the district from South Carolina, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and South Dakota. Judge Patricia Millett, appointed by former President Barack Obama, wrote the decision, in which Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both appointed during Trump’s first term, concurred. “Because the District of Columbia is a federal district created by Congress, rather than a constitutionally sovereign entity like the fifty States, the Defendants appear on this early record likely to prevail on the merits of their argument that the President possesses a unique power within the District — the seat of the federal government — to mobilize the Guard,” Millet wrote. Trump mobilized the District of Columbia National Guard and several state guards to the capital under Title 32 status, meaning their members can assist local law enforcement. District court order Judge Jia Cobb, for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, found the administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 guard troops in the city illegal but stayed her Nov. 20 decision until Dec. 11 to give the administration time to appeal and remove the guard members from the district’s streets. The Trump administration asked the federal appeals court to grant an emergency stay by Dec. 4, which the judges did. U.S. senators who oversee armed services policy heard testimony from high-level Department of Defense officials on Dec. 11 regarding the Trump administration’s National Guard deployments to five U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C. Guard member shooting A small memorial of flowers and an American flag outside the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., near where two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot on Nov. 26. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images) Wednesday’s decision comes three weeks after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot on Nov. 26 just blocks from the White House. U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving. U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, underwent surgery for critical injuries and remains hospitalized. Prosecutors charged the suspected shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who was living in Washington state, with first-degree murder, among other charges. On the day of the shooting, the Trump administration filed an emergency motion to stay Cobb’s order that found Trump’s guard deployment to the district was illegal. Trump initially mobilized 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital in August after declaring a “crime emergency.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://azmirror.com/2025/12/17/repub/federal-appeals-judges-allow-trumps-national-guard-deployment-to-d-c-for-now/ Published and (C) by Arizona Mirror Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/azmirror/