When President Donald Trump launched a law enforcement operation in Washington, D.C., four months ago, he billed it as a mission to fight rampant crime.
But activists and local leaders say that description belies what has emerged as a simultaneous crackdown on immigrants, who have grown increasingly concerned for their status and safety in the city.
One-third of all arrests made during the operation were immigration-related, according to official figures reviewed by The Associated Press. Activists and immigrants say arrests are frequent and frightening. A lawsuit alleges they are often unlawful. And with no end in sight to the surge in law enforcement in the city, there is no indication the immigration arrests will end.
The threat to immigrants in the city has now become routine, the activists and local leaders say.
Immigration enforcement sweeps are “not making the nightly news anymore because it’s business as usual,” said Washington council member Brianne K. Nadeau.
DC operation is a crime fighting mission, Trump says
Trump launched the federal intervention in D.C. in mid-August with an emergency order that took over the city's police force and sent federal agents in along with hundreds of National Guard troops.
Trump's Republican administration says the D.C. mission is intended to fight crime and has touted it as a resounding success, although crime was already on the decline before the operation began.
Official figures show that about 33% of the more than 7,500 arrests made since the operation began through Monday were immigration-related. In September, an Associated Press analysis found that 40% of the 2,400 arrests were immigration-related.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures released by the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project, of the roughly 1,130 immigration arrests made in the heavily Democratic city from the start of the operation to Oct. 15, the dates for which data was provided, 947 had no criminal record or pending criminal charge.
“The focus of President Trump’s highly successful D.C. operation has been to address crime committed by anyone, regardless of immigration status,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, who added that many of those arrested were committing crimes, had outstanding warrants or had prior convictions.
The statistics showed arrests in the period were wide-ranging, including homicide and drug charges.
‘My neighbors are being harassed, assaulted and kidnapped’
Although the emergency order affecting the police lapsed in September, arrest sweeps, checkpoints, masked law enforcement and unmarked vehicles are still visible.
Dozens of witnesses in a more than 10-hour municipal hearing earlier this month spelled out the ongoing concerns. Residents said they had seen detentions, often by masked and unidentifiable law enforcement agents. Common targets were school drop-off zones, food distribution sites, landscapers and apartments with large populations of Hispanic residents. There were numerous complaints that the local Metropolitan Police Department has continued working closely with ICE in its immigration efforts despite a pledge by Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, that they would not.
Nadia Salazar Sandi, a Bolivian immigrant, told the meeting that multiple family members have been detained over recent months, leaving what she said were empty seats at Thanksgiving dinner.
“This is terrifying,” she said of the immigration operations. “I’m a citizen now, and I walk with my passport.”
Witnesses said a number of the detentions began with routine traffic stops by the Metropolitan Police. One instance began as an expired-tag stop that drew more than a dozen federal officers and agents.
“Every single day my neighbors are being harassed, assaulted and kidnapped," said Leah Tribbett, a city resident. "I could talk for probably the entirety of this hearing and still not recount every single instance of brutality that I’ve seen.”
An earlier information gathering held by Nadeau revealed an increasing desire by some immigrants to fade out of the public eye. One witness was a medical professional who recounted how one family was considering opting out of speech and occupational therapy for their autistic children out of fear authorities would be waiting for them at the clinic.
Tactics used during arrests have been challenged in court
A federal judge earlier this month blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the people arrested have violated immigration law or there is knowledge they are flight risks.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs’ attorneys argued federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in neighborhoods with large numbers of Hispanic immigrants and then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
José Escobar Molina, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in court documents that he had temporary legal protections and lived in the city for 25 years. He said he was walking from his apartment building to his work truck when two cars pulled up next to him. Unidentified federal agents grabbed and handcuffed him without asking for his name, identification or any information about his immigration status, he said. They also did not ask where he lived, how long he has been in the area or whether he had ties to the community, he said.
Attorneys for the Trump administration argued that agents had probable cause to detain Molina and the other plaintiffs in the manner that was used.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said arrests in Washington and beyond are carried out lawfully and all detainees receive due process.
Madeleine Gates, associate counsel with the nonprofit Washington Lawyers' Committee and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they have submitted additional statements by community members with dozens of instances in which people were arrested outside proper procedures.
“What we’ve actually seen in practice are officers arresting people without seeming to know who they are,” Gates said.
Trump has not said when he might draw down the federal law enforcement surge. Following the shooting of two National Guard members allegedly by an Afghan national in the city last month, Trump said he planned to bring in hundreds more troops to support the operation.
Local leaders are holding hearings and raising the alarm about the arrests. But they acknowledge that in a federal district with limited autonomy, there is little they can do to push back.
“The frustrating truth," said Brooke Pinto, a city council member, “is that we do not have the same levers of power and control, nor the same rights, as a district that every one of the 50 other states have to protect our residents.”
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