Advocacy groups joined together to continue a push to halt President Donald Trump’s plans to construct an arch that would obstruct the ability to view Arlington National Cemetery.
VoteVets, a Democratic veterans group, was joined by Home of the Brave, a political advocacy group, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit focused on landscape heritage, in an effort to halt the build of the planned arch as the anticipated date of construction nears.
Last week, it was announced on social media that construction would soon begin for the arch, which would be 250 feet tall and sit at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.
The groups released a new video Tuesday, saying that breaking the sightline from the Lincoln Memorial to the cemetery is “entirely inappropriate and borders on sacrilege” to the 400,000 service members buried there.
“This proposal by this administration doesn’t bear well with me,” Karen Meredith, the Gold Star mother of 1st Lt. Ken Ballard who died in the Iraq War and is buried at Arlington, said in the video. “There will be an observation deck. We don’t need tourists overlooking funerals. I’m just appalled.”
Placing that large of an arch, dubbed the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck, in that location would alter the hallowed ground and associated feeling when experiencing the cemetery, Cultural Landscape Foundation President and CEO Charles Birnbaum said in the video.
The National Park Service released documents saying that construction would take two to three years at 20 hours per day, which the video argues could conflict with burials at the cemetery that occur every weekday.
The project is currently being challenged by veterans and a historic preservationist in federal court. The U.S. District Court filing says that there is no legal basis for the arch and that it needs approval from Congress, despite the Trump administration alleging that a 1925 law related to the building of Arlington Memorial Bridge authorizes the construction.
The National Capital Planning Commission is expected to meet Oct. 1 to review the arch’s plans and consider its final approval after granting it preliminary approval in early July.
Cristina Stassis is a reporter covering stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She previously worked as an editorial fellow for Defense News in 2024 where she assisted the newsroom in breaking news across Sightline Media Group.
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