A former NASA employee has spent 13 months tracking federal law enforcement arrests across Washington, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, Sept. 16.

Robert Meyers is part of a group that has quietly monitored federal officer activity since President Trump launched the Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force in August 2025. The Post described Meyers standing at a six-way intersection on Georgia Avenue, gripping his bike by the handlebars, able to visualize the arrests he has witnessed along the major commuter artery. The group had previously kept its effort private.

His watch coincides with a federal presence that has grown far beyond its original scope. The deployment began with 800 National Guard members. That number has swelled to roughly 4,600 troops drawn from D.C. and 24 states, according to PBS. The operation now costs taxpayers more than $3 million a day, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate reported by NPR.

The U.S. House voted in March to extend the mission through Inauguration Day 2029 at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion, according to a Defense Department estimate.

The task force, a coalition of about 20 federal and local agencies including the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service and Customs and Border Protection, has made more than 16,000 arrests in its first year, according to WJLA. The Marshals Service said those arrests include 35 homicide suspects, more than 100 known gang members and more than 3,200 people on narcotics charges. Officials reported seizing nearly 2,000 firearms.

The Justice Department's task force page cites a 60% drop in homicides and a 32% drop in overall crime in 2025. In 2026, the department reports homicides down 45% and overall crime down 25%.

But two independent studies found the National Guard had little to no measurable effect on violent crime. The Niskanen Center found a roughly 25% decrease in petty property crime over the first six months but no measurable effect on violent crime, The Georgetowner reported. The Center for American Progress reached a similar conclusion.

The scale of enforcement has strained the local justice system. The D.C. Superior Court "lockup list," which records people detained overnight for arraignment, routinely hovers near 100, far above the pre-surge norm of about 60, according to The Atlantic. An independent oversight agency found police complaints rose 25% after federal agents began patrolling alongside local officers, The Washington Post reported in May.

The deployment has also turned deadly. Nolberto Meza, a DoorDash driver, was struck and killed on the Taft Bridge on June 20 during a high-speed U.S. Park Police chase of a suspected stolen car, according to the Free D.C. Project. A second D.C. resident, Julian Bailey, was also killed by federal agents during the deployment's first year, according to Free D.C. and The Georgetowner.

"The line just keeps being moved, with the intention of people getting used to seeing armed guards on our streets," Jill Santos, co-chair of Free DC in Ward 2, told The Georgetowner in an Aug. 10 article. "They're hoping that we come to normalize it."

A federal judge ruled both the D.C. and out-of-state Guard deployments were illegal, but that ruling is paused while an appeals court considers the case. The D.C. Council has passed emergency measures requiring the Metropolitan Police Department to keep records of federal officers' role in arrests and use-of-force incidents.

The deployment is set to run through January 2029.