ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Officials with the Alaska National Guard said plans to deploy a trained rapid response force this month to support federal authorities in Washington D.C. has been pushed back to May, according to Corinne Smith with the Alaska Beacon.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy in November approved the U.S. Secretary of the Army’s request for 100 service members to deploy to the nation’s capital as part of a joint federal task force this month. The effort is part of a national directive by the Pentagon to all 50 states to prepare National Guard service members to train for “civil disturbance operations.”

By email on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Alaska National Guard said the timeline has been extended.

“The Alaska National Guard remains in contact with the Pentagon, through the National Guard Bureau, and continues to move through the established processes to support Joint Task Force-District of Columbia,” said Dana Rosso, a public affairs officer with the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which houses the Army and Air National Guard divisions.

“The current activation timeline has been refined to May 2026,” he wrote.

As of January, there were roughly 2,700 National Guard members stationed in Washington D.C., which the Trump administration has said is to help drive down crime. Service members are expected to be stationed there through the end of the year. On Tuesday, an additional District of Columbia Army National Guard brigade was activated “to coordinate military support to civil authorities and protect critical infrastructure in the nation’s capital.”

A spokesperson for Dunleavy’s office declined to comment on the extended timeline on Wednesday.

At the time the request was announced, Maj. Gen. Torrence Saxe, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard and Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a letter to lawmakers that 100 service members were in training for the mission to be “aligned with nation-level requirements.”

“The team will consist of Alaska Army and Air National Guard personnel trained in mission sets that may include site security, roadblocks and checkpoints, civil disturbance control, critical infrastructure protection, and personnel security,” Saxe wrote.

But the process for how the deployment was formally requested and approved has raised questions from lawmakers.

Rosso said by email Thursday the request was made by phone call.

“The request for activation of the Alaska National Guard to support Joint Task Force – DC came via phone call to Governor Mike Dunleavy from the Secretary of the Army following the President’s Executive Orders from August 2025,” he wrote.

Dunleavy’s office could not find a written copy of the U.S. Secretary of Defense that requested the deployment, a spokesperson for the governor’s office said Wednesday.

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and co-chair of the Joint Armed Services Committee, is a veteran of the Alaska National Guard and was among lawmakers that raised concerns in November when the announcement was made. He questioned the legality of the directive in an interview on Wednesday.

“Until they get something in writing, then there’s no actual deployment to prepare for,” Gray said.

“I think it’s a big misuse of the American taxpayer dollar to fly any soldiers from Alaska to D.C. for what we know is a trash pickup mission in many ways, and it’s a waste,” he added. “It’s just a waste of taxpayer dollars. So I hope that it continues to get pushed off indefinitely and that it never happens.”

Editor’s note: This story was republished with permission from the Alaska Beacon.

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