Below are the opening remarks made by Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, D-Ward 1, at today’s roundtable on incidents since January that involve D.C. government coordination with federal entities or joint enforcement activity that may violate D.C. human rights laws.

Good morning. I am Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, the Chair of the Committee on Public Works and Operations. I am calling to order this meeting of the Committee to conduct a public roundtable to examine potential human rights violations in the District of Columbia.

Today is Wednesday, October 29, 2025. The time is 9:31 a.m.

Since the end of the Metropolitan Police Department’s forced 30-day collaboration with federal law enforcement, Mayor Bowser has said MPD is no longer cooperating with federal immigration officials. Residents say that is not accurate.

Our residents are afraid, and they are angry. They want the executive to be forthcoming about current policies. They want the Council of D.C. to hold some sort of forum to hear the testimony and consider action to address the impact of the collaboration of District government agencies and employees with federal law enforcement on immigration issues. Today, we are providing one such forum.

This Committee has oversight of the D.C. Office of Human Rights, which is responsible for administering and enforcing the D.C. Human Rights Act. D.C. human rights law prohibits both intentional discrimination and policies or practices that have a discriminatory effect based on protected traits including national origin, race, homeless status or place of residence.

The purpose of the roundtable is to hear from residents and organizations about incidents they’ve witnessed since January that involve D.C. government coordination with federal entities or joint enforcement activity that may violate D.C.’s human rights laws, in order to understand the impact these incidents have had on the agency, such as increases in case filings, complaints, or resource needs. While the Office of Human Rights does not have authority over federal agencies, it does handle cases involving private and public actors, including police and other District workers.

The Committee requested that the D.C. Office of Human Rights participate in this roundtable. We were informed by the executive that the agency would not participate. This is disappointing.

This hearing comes a day after news reports that a federal Homeland Security Investigations agent shot at a man in D.C. during a traffic stop this month and the MPD officers with them did not report the shots in their incident reports, possibly after being instructed not to do so. The U.S. Attorney was, reportedly, not aware of the shots. The judge is quoted as saying, “It is shocking to me that someone was almost killed over a missing front license plate.”

We have no control over federal agents, but we, the Council, do have oversight of MPD and deserve to know why police officers are being told to keep details hidden to protect federal agents.

Today’s testimony could include instances of government agencies sharing arrest or booking info, including immigration status, with federal agencies, conducting stops or detentions that disproportionately target people perceived as immigrants, disproportionate enforcement activities in residences and businesses in neighborhoods with larger immigrant populations, and encampment clearings.

To say that D.C. residents are traumatized by the surge of federal agents and stepped-up immigration enforcement is not hyperbole. I personally have heard multiple stories of parents snatched by masked and unidentified agents. I’ve witnessed incidents, as well. We’ve heard of kids left on their own after parents have been removed. We’ve heard of U.S. citizens being detained without warrants and with no apparent reason. And in many of these cases, D.C. police have participated.

Students in 8th, 9th, and 10th grades at several schools in Ward 4 give us a window into how this has affected them, with anonymous responses they shared in a recent survey:

• “Sometimes I can barely attend school due to what’s happening right now, which is affecting my education.”
• “Sometimes my family is scare(d) to let me going to school.”
• “When ICE took one of my family members, it was a very difficult and emotional experience. Seeing federal law enforcement so close to my family made me feel scared and powerless.”
• “Most of the time there’s ICE cars with police cars near my school getting innocent people and when they do that the (families) who are trying to drop off their kids at school have to drive in fear on the way there and the way back. This not only happened to me but many others right now where their only provider or family gets taken by ICE and sometimes the kids get left behind, having nowhere to go and leaving them alone with nobody to be there for them, or even provide them with any (type of) care. I think it’s unfair to the community on how there’s more things to worry about out there but they are focusing more on innocent Latin/Hispanic humans.”
• “One time (my mom) wrote everything like her bank account password and everything she thought I would need in a book for me to have if ICE took her, and mind you my family lived in a apartment and my parents didn’t know if one day ICE would take them because ice had came in the building 3-4 times looking for people and there was this time that I was babysitting my sister and my 9 y old cousin and I had just gotten a call from my cousin telling me that ICE was in the first floor and to lock my door.
  
  “I was terrified because I never been in a situation like that but I did what she told me to do and went in my parents’ room with my 4-year-old sister and told my cousin to be quiet and not say nothing. I was just praying to the Lord that nothing happens and my dad called me – he just told me to stay in there and my mom was coming and to pray that everything will be okay so I did that. And just stayed there waiting until my mom finally came home and she said that they left, but I just saw from the look of her that she was scared and relieved that we were okay and the next day I didn’t go to school because ice had came back around 7 in the morning looking for someone.”

As I noted earlier, D.C. government does not have authority over federal agencies. But we do have authority over our own agencies. If actions by our agencies do not comply with D.C. laws on human rights, we need to know and we need to make demands of the executive to put an end to those actions.

Thank you to all of you who plan to speak today, and the many more who have submitted or plan to submit testimony. Anyone may submit written testimony through November 28th. 

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