The Arlington County Board has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop construction of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot arch in Memorial Circle.
The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, makes the Board the first government body to take legal action against the monument. It criticizes the speed at which the project has moved without going through the full review process.
“The National Park Service, the agency responsible for projects on national park land such as Memorial Circle, is proceeding full-speed toward ground-disturbing construction,” the lawsuit said. “Although the agency has claimed that a final decision to construct the Arch has not yet been made and purports to be engaged in a routine decisional process, that rushed process appears to be a pretext designed to shore up justifications for building the Arch in accordance with the President’s repeated marching orders.”
The lawsuit asks that “the agency’s feverish pace toward construction of the arch” be halted so that the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act are followed and proper analysis and testing are done.
“The Arlington County Board has filed this lawsuit because our community has the most to lose from this egregious and unlawful proposed project,” County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti (D) said in a statement.
De Ferranti said the county has acted in good faith in the review process, citing the “severe, unique, and wide-ranging negative impacts” the project would have on the county and its residents, only to see them ignored.
County planning staff flagged a long list of concerns in a review this summer, written during a seven-day comment window rather than the usual 60 days for projects affecting Arlington. Staff warned of crowded sidewalks around the busy traffic circle, unstudied traffic effects on the GW Parkway and Richmond Highway, possible conflicts with flights at Reagan National Airport and damage to historic views tied to Arlington National Cemetery.
The Board had previously authorized the County Attorney to sue over the arch. De Ferranti last month called Trump’s plan to turn the structure into a “top grade military complex” with drones, snipers and ammunition “deeply unsettling.”
The county is being represented by legal advocacy group Democracy Forward. The White House and Interior Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Memorial Circle sits on federal parkland at the Virginia end of Memorial Bridge, immediately adjacent to Arlington.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced Sept. 3 that excavation at the site would begin within two weeks. The Interior Department did not respond to questions this week about the status of that work, according to the AP.
The lawsuit comes after the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA raised safety concerns about the arch, which would sit on final approach to National Airport. Union President Sara Nelson said it compounds safety issues she said have gone unaddressed since the January 2025 midair collision over the Potomac River that killed 67 people, and criticized the military complex plan.
Though the arch has received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were all tapped by Trump, a group of three veterans and an architectural historian sued in federal court in D.C., arguing the project needs to be approved by Congress. The judge in that case said the administration must give the court 48 hours’ notice before undertaking any activities related to or in preparation for construction.
Local opposition to the arch has been building for months. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) introduced a bill in May to prohibit the arch, and County Board member J.D. Spain Sr. (D) joined Beyer and two U.S. senators at a large protest in Memorial Circle last Thursday (Oct. 1).
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that Trump has undertaken as he remakes the city, from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to reshaping the Kennedy Center.
