DC Police Will Increase Work With ICE Amid Trump’s Crackdown Says Report
In a striking pivot that has ignited debate across the nation’s capital, Washington D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department has implemented a new executive order that could reshape the city’s long-standing stance on immigration enforcement.
On Thursday, Police Chief Pamela Smith issued an order that now allows officers conducting traffic stops to notify federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents if they encounter undocumented immigrants.
The directive marks a major departure from the department’s previous policies, which had largely resisted such cooperation unless a criminal charge or detainment was involved.
This move lands in the middle of a city that has, at times, straddled the line between sanctuary and cooperation. Despite Mayor Muriel Bowser’s firm claim that D.C. is not a sanctuary city—citing previous collaboration with ICE—the District has enacted multiple policies supporting undocumented residents.
These include allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections and limiting city agencies’ cooperation with federal immigration enforcement unless certain legal thresholds are met.
Neither Bowser’s office, the police department, nor ICE have issued a statement in response to inquiries about the order, leaving many to speculate on what this shift signals in the broader context of federal-local relations under the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump wasted no time applauding the move. Speaking from the White House on Thursday, he called the order a “great step,” suggesting that similar action should take place in cities nationwide. “When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them… that’s a very positive thing,” Trump said.
The executive order follows a dramatic federalization of the city’s law enforcement earlier in the week, with Trump deploying 800 National Guard troops and federal agents, including ICE officers, to patrol the streets.
Attorney General Pam Bondi declared this the beginning of the end of crime in the District, despite statistics showing crime is at its lowest in decades.
The implications are significant. ICE officers, now more visible in day-to-day enforcement across D.C., have already launched operations like the one seen Tuesday at a Home Depot parking lot, where agents carried out targeted arrests of undocumented immigrants.