Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved requests from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police for National Guard assistance ahead of trucker protests expected to arrive in the area soon.
Up to 700 National Guard personnel will be deployed to help control traffic at designated traffic posts and points leading to the Capitol. This includes 400 members of the D.C. National Guard and nearly 300 other Guard members from New Jersey, Vermont, and West Virginia, who will arrive “no later than February 26.”
Truck drivers protesting vaccine requirements are expected to depart Pennsylvania on Wednesday morning and drive to the D.C. area, arriving late Wednesday or Thursday. The demonstration protesting vaccine requirements and other issues is inspired by truck driver protests in Canada.
According to Time, Guard members will not carry firearms or take part in law enforcement or domestic-surveillance activities, the Pentagon said. Modeled after recent trucker protests in Canada, separate truck convoys have been planned through online forums with names like the People’s Convoy and the American Truckers Freedom Fund — all with different starting points, departure dates, and routes.
Some are scheduled to arrive in time for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on March 1, though others may arrive afterward. The convoys follow the recent Canadian truckers’ protest which shut down the busiest U.S. Canadian border crossing and besieged the streets of the capital, Ottawa, for weeks to protest government pandemic restrictions.
The multiple blockades were broken up by police last week, with more than 100 arrests. It remains to be seen if any of the U.S. convoys would seek to actively shut down Washington’s streets, the way their Canadian counterparts did in Ottawa. Some convoy organizers have spoken of plans to briefly roll through the city, then focus on shutting down the Beltway, which encircles the capital.
