Legislation under consideration by the Virginia House of Delegates would require the U.S. Congress to formally pass an act of war against a foreign country before the Governor of Virginia is allowed to authorize the Virginia National Guard to deploy overseas.
The Defend the Guard Act, or HB 2193 was submitted on January 7 by Delegate Nick Freitas (R-Culpeper), and on Thursday the legislation was advanced unanimously in vote by the House Subcommittee on Public Safety, prompting the conservative lawmaker to celebrate in a video posted to the social media platform X.
“I’ve got to admit, I did not see that coming,” said Freitas, a Green Beret combat veteran who served in Iraq. “We just got the Defend the Guard Act through the first hurdle in the Virginia legislature.”
The lawmaker explained, “What the Defend the Guard Act does is it says the Virginia National Guard cannot be deployed into combat operations unless Congress has actually declared war. It can still be used to defend the commonwealth.”
Freitas stated, “it can still be used to defend the country, heck, it can still be used to defend the border, but you don’t get to send them into foreign conflicts unless Congress actually has the courage to declare war, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask, and neither did my colleagues.”
Defend the Guard Act passes the first hurdle in Virginia… pic.twitter.com/vLWLfTWFhA
— Nick Freitas (@NickJFreitas) January 30, 2025
The legislation would specifically prohibit national guard soldiers from participating in an armed conflict, specifically related “to an armed conflict in a foreign state,” unless there is an “official declaration of war,” which the bill defines as an act of Congress.
It specifically states that the legislation does not prevent Virginia’s governor from using the guard, “into active duty for the purpose of providing defense support for civil authority missions in a foreign state or elsewhere within the United States.”
The Virginia National Guard served in an overseas conflict as recently as 2021, when about 1,000 soldiers were activated in the largest numbers since World War II to support a security mission in Africa.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].