# Lafayette Square Fencing Plan The **Lafayette Square Fencing Plan** is a 2026 Trump-administration proposal, reported in July 2026, to erect **permanent eight- to nine-foot fencing** around President's Park — the public space that includes Lafayette Square in front of the White House — and to potentially fence off the stretches of **Pennsylvania Avenue** nearest the executive mansion. The [[United States Secret Service]], the White House, and the [[Department of the Interior]] were reported to be jointly pursuing the plan. The significance is in the word **permanent**. In the past, when officials judged it necessary to close public access to Lafayette Square, they used **temporary** barriers — precisely to avoid the perception of walling off what is known as the People's House from the people. A permanent fence reverses that default, converting an exception into a fixture and treating public presence near the White House as a standing threat rather than a democratic norm. ## Context: the fortress-presidency thread The fencing plan surfaced the same week as two other physical alterations to the White House, and Heather Cox Richardson braided all three together in her July 10, 2026 letter. The [[White House Ballroom Project]] replaced the East Wing; the North Portico's Ionic columns were slated for replacement with Corinthian ones on the advice of a Trump appointee to the [[Commission of Fine Arts]], with scaffolding and drapes going up and the [[United States Secret Service]] adding "security enhancements" including door fortification. The Lafayette Square fencing extends that hardening outward from the building to the public ground around it. Lafayette Square carries its own history in the KB as the site of the June 2020 [[Lafayette Square Bible Photo Op]], when federal forces cleared peaceful protesters so the president could stage a photograph — an episode about the militarized control of the same public space this plan would now fence permanently. ## Eleanor Holmes Norton's objection [[Eleanor Holmes Norton]], the non-voting delegate representing the District of Columbia, objected publicly to the plan, framing it as a message about the character of the government itself: that more fencing around the President's Park would continue to transform a democracy "that is accessible and of the people" into one "that is exclusive and fearful of its own citizens." Her objection also underscores the District's structural powerlessness — decisions reshaping public space in Washington are made by federal actors over whom D.C. residents have no voting representation. ## See Also - [[White House Ballroom Project]] - [[Commission of Fine Arts]] - [[Eleanor Holmes Norton]] - [[Lafayette Square Bible Photo Op]] - [[United States Secret Service]]