Tomorrow marks one-year since President Trump announced a “crime emergency” in D.C., took charge of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department for 30 days, and deployed the National Guard in the District. By this time, our District had already been subjected to ICE, HSI, DEA, and other federal agencies surging our streets and neighborhoods, and plucking immigrants from their vehicles, jobs and homes.
With no end in sight, this federal occupation has had a demoralizing effect on everyone.
Especially when we know that the Guard serve no real purpose here. Crime was declining significantly before they arrived. It’s clear that except for a small deterrent effect in a few locations, they’ve had little impact.
Meanwhile, their presence has caused issues of its own, including because the majority of the Guard deployed to DC are from out of state. There’s a recent lawsuit filed against the Idaho National Guard for allegedly assaulting a veteran who was sitting on her stoop, exercising her first amendment rights.
What we’re seeing is a stunning deviation from democratic norms, and straight from the totalitarian playbook. The longer the National Guard is here, the more normalized every encounter becomes. When the next escalation takes place, it’ll be seen as less significant because we’re already used to seeing the Guard hanging around Metro stations and public parks and walking through residential neighborhoods.
The Guard is not the only, or even the biggest, concern. Ward 1 has one of the largest immigrant communities in the District, and our residents feel especially vulnerable. Immigrants, most of whom are here legally, many of them U.S. citizens, should not be made afraid to leave their homes. Continued presence of federal law enforcement earlier this year, including ICE, Homeland Security, DEA, and others contributes even more deeply to that fear.
The aggressive actions of federal agents continue to endanger our residents. In April, federal agents fired into the car of an unarmed man during a traffic stop. (MPD did not initially disclose this fact and did not share body cam footage until the Council passed a law requiring them to do so.) In June, United States Park Police began a high-speed chase of a man in a stolen car that ended up killing an innocent moped rider. The Park Police had a no-chase policy until an executive order by President Trump lifted that last year.
Last October I held a roundtable on possible human rights violations stemming from this federal interference, the first opportunity for residents to speak up in a public forum about the demeaning federal imposition on the city. One of the things we heard repeatedly was that MPD was still collaborating with federal agencies on immigration enforcement – a violation of D.C. law which resulted in peoples’ loss of trust in law enforcement. Residents expected their mayor to protect their neighbors, not assist in harassing and detaining them and worse.
In January of this year, I released a committee report that called on the Mayor and police chief to rescind two orders that allow D.C. police to cooperate with federal law enforcement on immigration, including the Mayor’s order creating a “Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center.” Those orders are still in effect, even as the Mayor has continued to say that MPD does not collaborate on immigration enforcement because that’s not their job.
This collaboration with immigration enforcement is not OK. In the heart of Ward 1 we see out-of-state vehicles with tape over their license plates parked in front of the MPD 4th District substation doing roll call. These and other federal agents are collaborating. Via the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center that was shamefully created by Mayor Bowser.
Still, there is reason to be hopeful. The people of D.C. are incredibly resilient. We have a long tradition of fighting back and protesting. The Free DC Project is a perfect example of that – fighting the fight, full of energy and hope and joy, playing the short and the long game.
The people of D.C. will always, always fight back.