The National Guard started ramping up its presence in Washington on Thursday, deploying troops to the National Mall and Metro stations as President Trump's takeover of city crime-fighting begins to take shape.

Overnight, the first signs of on-the-ground resistance to federal forces popped up in response to a checkpoint that halted traffic on one of the city's main streets.

The White House said more than 1,600 personnel were involved in operations across the city on Wednesday, making 45 arrests, mostly of immigrants who lacked permanent legal status.

While the Guard had a relatively small footprint in the city earlier this week, by Thursday, all of the roughly 800 Army and Air National Guard troops Trump ordered to the streets had mobilized for duty, the Pentagon confirmed.

“They will remain until law and order has been restored in the district as determined by the president, standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation's capital,” Department of Defense press secretary Kingsley Wilson told reporters at the Pentagon.

She added that the guard members will assist the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and federal law enforcement officers with “community safety patrols,” protecting monuments, federal facilities and traffic control posts, and “area beautification.”

“It’s a deterrent. It makes people feel safe,” Kingsley said.

The number of guard members have steadily increased since Monday evening, when they were first spotted along the National Mall. On Thursday, they were positioned around the National Mall and Metro stops such as Union Station, where tourists milled about and the occasional camera crew stopped to capture footage of the troops and their vehicles.

At 7th Avenue NW and Madison Drive NW, between the long stretches of grass that separate the Washington Monument from the Capitol Building, a lone military vehicle was spotted idling on the street with two service members inside. Tourists stopped to take pictures of the........

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