Calls grow for Green to recall Hawaii National Guard from DC | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

A growing chorus of local and national organizations is calling on Gov. Josh Green to recall Hawaii National Guardsmen dispatched to Washington, D.C.

Twenty-seven members of the Hawaii Army National Guards 29th Infantry Brigade Combat Team arrived in D.C. on July 6. In a statement, Hawaii National Guard commander Maj. Gen.
Stephen Logan said that
“Hawai‘i National Guard
personnel are specifically assigned under a battalion-­sized task force dedicated to security and support to America/Freedom 250 events and venues.”

Since returning to the White House this year, President Donald Trump has been requesting governors across the country to send members of their National Guards to support his sweeping immigration crackdown, border security duty and operations in
D.C. that he says are
aimed at cracking down
on crime.

In a joint letter to Green, which was shared with media on Friday, the ACLU of Hawai‘i, Indivisible Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Our Hawai’i and other organizations asked Green to recall them back to the islands.

“Governors have the legal option to decline these requests, and many have,” they wrote. “Nearly 5,000 National Guard members from states aligned with the president’s agenda have been sent to patrol neighborhoods throughout Washington, D.C., under the guise of controlling street crime, despite going against the will of the district’s residents and local government.”

Green’s office referred all questions about the deployment to the Hawaii National Guard.

In recent years, the Hawaii National Guard has frequently been called up for disaster response duties in the islands, assisting with COVID-19 response, wildfires and storms.

“As we approach hurricane season, our National Guard members must remain here at home and be available for its core purposes: disaster relief and other local emergencies,” the local organizations said in their letter. “Our Guard members have been called on this past year to support storm recovery, fight wildfires, and remain ready to assist in other state emergencies. Committing our Guard to an open-ended mission thousands of miles away would greatly undermine that readiness.”

But Logan said “with only 27 Hawai‘i Guardsmen sent to DC, there is no impact on the Hawai‘i National Guard’s ability to respond to storms or fires and support any county in need.”

The Hawaii Guardsmen are currently assigned to Joint Task Force – District of Columbia, a task force the Trump administration
created in August 2025 to coordinate the use of National Guardsmen and federal agents from various law enforcement agencies to conduct operations across the U.S. capital.

When Guardsmen began deploying to D.C. in August, most were sent by Republican governors that are strongly aligned with Trump. Several blue states, including Hawaii, joined in litigation challenging the deployments.

But this summer several Democratic governors that previously condemned Trump’s use of guard forces accepted requests from the White House to send troops to D.C. as the nation celebrated its 250th birthday. They include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein.

“We are asked to believe that our Guard members are only to provide support for Freedom 250 and associated summer events in coordination with civil authority partners, but this is not the reality we face,” the letter stated “Guard members deployed to these right-wing partisan ‘Freedom 250’ events go against the non-partisan nature of the National Guard and is adrift from its core duties and mission.”

Logan is currently in D.C. where he has met with the Hawaii guardsmen and other military officials. He said that “Hawai‘i National Guard personnel sent to D.C. are not a part of the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful mission. Our troops are strictly supporting the America/Freedom 250 events. I have personally communicated with the commander of the DC Joint Task Force about this distinction.”

On Wednesday, Our Hawai’i joined 23 more organizations in sending Green another letter asking him to recall the Hawaii guardsmen. This time organizations included the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, the American Federation of Teachers, Common Cause and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

They wrote that such deployments “should be a last resort in cases where emergencies have overwhelmed civilian authorities. That is clearly not the case in DC.”

“Previous presidents have requested assistance from out-of-state Guard forces during major events in DC, and such requests would normally give little cause for concern,” the second letter stated. “But there is nothing normal about the way President Trump has used National Guard forces in the nation’s capital or other cities across the country, and no reason to trust his administration to use your Guard forces appropriately or even lawfully.”

Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director for national security at the Brennan Center, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser “we were concerned specifically with deployments of National Guard forces by governors who had previously condemned deployment of out-of-state guard forces in D.C.”

She noted that Walz, Moore, Beshear, and Stein already have withdrawn their guardsmen from D.C. and that “in at least two cases, the deployments were ended early because the governors learned that their Guard forces were being folded into the JTF anti-­crime mission.”

“The exception was Gov. Whitmer in Michigan, and so the coalition sent a letter to Gov. Whitmer, and then after that letter was sent, Hawaii sent guard forces to DC after the July 4 weekend,” Goitein said. “That’s really hard to justify, because if the purpose is to support America 250 events, the major events were the ones that happened over the July 4th weekend. There’s really not much left in terms of America 250 events in Washington D.C.”

National Guard officials said that deployment is slated to end near the end of August, but that it could be extended for up to 90 days. However, Logan said that “if our Hawai‘i Guardsmen are expected to support missions other than America/Freedom 250, then the Governor and I can recall the troops. Right now, there is no plan to recall them.”

“There’s really only one (more America 250 event) that’s going to draw large numbers of people, sort of all in one place, and that’s the National Girl Scout Convention,” Goitein said. “That’s just for five days in July, so that can’t really justify sending the Hawaiian National Guard this last week and keeping them here up to 90 days.”