WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has portrayed his federal law enforcement surge in Washington as focused on tackling crime. But data from the federal operation, analyzed by The Associated Press, shows that more than 40% of the arrests made over the monthlong operation were in fact related to immigration.
The finding highlights that in the nation’s capital, the administration continued to advance its hardline immigration agenda.
The Trump administration has claimed success in the federal takeover
in D.C., saying it has led to more than 2,300 arrests, including more than a dozen homicide suspects, 20 alleged gang members and hundreds of people accused of drug and gun crimes. More than 220 illegal guns have been taken off the street, including in one case from a teen who made a concerning social media post about a school, officials said.
Yet the prominence of immigration arrests — more than 940 people — has fueled criticism that the true purpose of the operation may have been to expand deportations. For critics, the effort appears less a one-off push against crime in the capital than a model for federal intervention and the highlighting of violent crime in other cities led by Democratic mayors, a familiar political playbook that Trump leaned on during the 2020 campaign.
Already, officials in Chicago, long a foil for the administration’s law-and-order rhetoric, were bracing for an influx of immigration agents and possibly National Guard troops. Trump himself fanned speculation over the weekend, posting on social media a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” with helicopters looming over Chicago and the caption: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”
The administration has repeatedly argued that deportations are inseparable from crime reduction, often casting those arrested by immigration authorities as the “worst of the worst.” Still, it remains unclear how many of those taken into custody in Washington had any other charges pending.
In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said many had prior arrests, convictions or outstanding warrants for crimes like assault, drug possession and child sexual abuse, without specifying a number.
“Law enforcement is doing an outstanding job removing these threats from D.C. communities – the focus of this operation has been stopping violent crime committed by anyone, regardless of their immigration status,” Jackson said in an email.
Internal law enforcement reports obtained by the AP provide a partial picture. Over 10 days sampled during the surge, about 22 percent of those arrested on immigration violations had criminal records, including for driving while intoxicated, drug possession, grand larceny and burglary. That sample makes up a third of the entire period. Figures for other days were not immediately available.
Trump’s D.C. operation was launched to address a “crime emergency."
On Aug. 11, Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city’s police force. That order is set to expire overnight Wednesday. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard, which remains in the city along with other federal agents.
While immigration enforcement agents have been part of the operation since the beginning, Trump has put an emphasis on wanting to address the city’s crime rates, which figures show slowed during the federal law enforcement surge but were already falling before it. Congress let the emergency order expire on Wednesday but National Guard troops are expected to remain deployed in the city.
Just a few days after the president declared a crime emergency, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered city officials to revoke the district’s “sanctuary policies,” signaling the administration’s efforts to focus on immigration enforcement in the operation. Sanctuary policies generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers.
After a lawsuit by D.C. officials, the administration agreed to leave the city’s police chief in control of the department, but Bondi in a new memo directed police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law.
In Bondi’s order last month on “restoring safety and security” to the nation’s capital, she wrote the dangers posed by violent crime in the city are “multiplied by the District’s sanctuary city policies.” She added that the “proliferation of illegal aliens into our country during the prior Administration, including into our Nation’s capital, presents extreme public safety and national security risks to our country.”
Peer-reviewed academic studies have generally found no link between immigration and violent crime, though conclusions vary based on the data examined.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement made immigration-related arrests in the Washington area before the operation launched. But the agency’s presence has been much more visible since the Aug. 11 launch of the operation. Activists across the city have responded, often publicizing on social media locations where ICE has been seen and sharing videos of agents arresting people.
Immigrants worried about checkpoints or arrests have furiously been sharing information across messaging apps about streets to avoid. Activists have also stepped in to deliver food to immigrants fearful of leaving their homes because they risk encountering federal officers surging into the city.
In social media posts, the Homeland Security Department has highlighted the number of people it has arrested for immigration violations as part the Trump administration’s violent crime operation in D.C. In one such post, it said staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection were being deployed to “help clean up the streets of our nation’s capital.”
“DHS will support the re-establishment of law and order and public safety in DC, which includes taking drug dealers, gang members, and criminal aliens off city streets,” the department said.
