If the fence proposal is implemented, it could limit the public’s access to an open space that has allowed people to practice free speech at the doorstep of the country’s highest seat of power.
The administration has said that a permanent fence around Lafayette Square would enhance security during “heightened conditions,” and that the park would remain a public space. It has cited clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and the police in 2020, vandalism of park statues in 2024 during protests against the war in Gaza and a shooting near the White House this year as examples of security concerns.
Mr. Trump has invoked national security to justify an array of proposals to remake Washington, including the building of a 250-foot triumphal arch and the demolition of the East Wing to make space for a ballroom.
Opponents of the plan say that a fence would deter the free speech activities that have long defined the seven-acre park and make it easier for the administration to curb protests at will. It is the latest example of President Trump’s use of executive measures and legal maneuvers to clamp down on dissent, they say.
“This is a slippery slope, and as soon as this is a tool you have, it’s a tool that’s going to be used,” Evan Cash, a D.C. council staff member, said of the fence at a National Capital Planning Commission meeting in September where the administration presented its proposal.
The planning commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, both federal panels filled with Mr. Trump’s appointees, have signaled they are likely to vote to give the project final approval.
The New York Times created a 3-D model of the area to show how the proposal could shape access to the park, based on drawings submitted to the panels. The design elements have not been finalized.
Even if the gates were open, simply having a fence around the park might deter public gatherings. People might worry that they could be trapped inside, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a public letter to the National Park Service.
And, the lawyers added, “the very presence of a fence will send a clear message to the public that the park is only open by permission, and that permission may be withdrawn at any moment.”
Lafayette Square has not had a permanent fence around it since 1889, when officials removed the cast-iron pickets and gates to make it more open to the public. Since then, the park has been closed for short periods for special occasions, like the arrival of foreign diplomats or large White House events, but Mr. Trump has a history of closing it for longer stretches.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the administration closed the park off during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The closure followed an incident in which law enforcement officers violently cleared protesters from the park with tear gas and flash grenades. The park remained closed for more than 11 months.
And this year, the park was boarded up for eight months with a patchwork of temporary barriers. Administration officials said at the planning commission meeting in September that the park was closed, in part, for renovations. When Times reporters visited the site in August, however, construction appeared to have been completed.
Some of those barriers on the park’s northern edge were pushed back last week, opening part of the space. The administration told The Times that the Secret Service was working to make the park more accessible to the public while balancing the president’s security needs.
A majority of the space remains blocked off. The Trump administration has said a permanent fence is also necessary to replace temporary barriers that are used now.
Those temporary barriers could easily be removed when a new president came in, but it would take a lot more effort to remove a permanent fence, said Jeffrey Hou, head of the architecture department and co-director of the Civic Resilience Laboratory at the National University of Singapore.
Yet, for most of the park’s history, the space has been known for its openness and permeability. Some protests have flooded the park for a single day, while others have quietly held their ground for longer. One woman, Concepcion Picciotto, camped there in protest of nuclear arms for decades.
It’s a place where “you can physically be seen and heard by the people that you’re directing your attention and your message to,” said Cara A. Finnegan, a professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies photography as a tool for communication.
