As US President Donald Trump expands his authoritarian takeovers of Democrat-led cities, more than 1,000 students from four universities in Washington, DC walked out to protest the Republican's recent actions in the nation's capital.

Students from American University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and Howard University are protesting Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and federalization of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), which have also provoked a lawsuit from DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb and a congressional resolution that aims to stop his takeover.

"Students are showing the country that we won't be silent while Trump tries to strip DC residents of our rights," American University student organizer Asher Heisten said in a statement circulated Tuesday by the youth-led Sunrise Movement.

"When Trump sends federal forces into DC, he is trying to intimidate and silence us," Heisten continued. "But students are proving that we will fight back to reject Trump's dangerous authoritarianism."

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The students were joined by a pair of progressive lawmakers, US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

"Trump's federal takeover is a direct attack on democracy and the people of Washington, DC," Jayapal said in a statement. "The students leading today's walkouts are showing the entire nation what it means to resist authoritarianism with strength and solidarity."

The congresswoman told a crowd at Georgetown, her alma mater, that "this is an unprecedented moment in our country, where we have an authoritarian leader who is deploying federal troops to Washington, DC—to cities across the country, militarizing our streets, kidnapping people on the streets."

"The only bulwark that we have is the people, and so what you are doing here today is so important, because, at the end of the day, the checks and balances that were supposed to be built into our Constitution so that we could protect our constitutional rights are not working right now," she stressed, calling out Republicans in Congress and US Supreme Court justices for refusing to hold Trump accountable.

Acknowledging the thousands of protesters who marched to the White House on Saturday, Jayapal declared that "we are not powerless," a line that drew loud cheers from the crowd.

Markey, in his remarks at Georgetown, noted that when the president's supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in hopes of stopping the certification of his 2020 electoral loss, "Trump refused to send in troops."

"He allowed for that assault," Markey said of the attempted insurrection. "But now, here in DC, the president is attempting to create an impression that the crime rate is going up rather than down, that there is in fact a crisis here in the District of Columbia."

"And what he is doing, not just here in DC, but in Chicago, in LA, in Boston, is to try to characterize communities that are majority minority, that are majority Black and brown, as being unsafe to live," Markey noted. "And it's not a coincidence... It is to scare America. You cannot make America great again by making America hate again."

Markey argued that "this is not about policing, this is about political theater," and denounced Trump's DC takeover as a "charade."

Like the lawmakers, Georgetown student Scout Cardillo suggested that the DC takeover isn't just about the district. Cardillo told The Washington Post that "the effects of the occupation of DC and federalization of MPD is going to be felt throughout the country imminently, and it is on us to take a stand and fight back."

Advocates for homeless people are urging Congress to stop a bill that will allow people in Washington, DC to be fined or jailed for sleeping on the streets.

The bill, known as HR 5163, was introduced in the US House of Representatives last week by Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.), as President Donald Trump's militarized takeover of the nation's capital moves into its second month.

Federal law enforcement has already forcibly cleared dozens of homeless encampments in DC under Trump's July executive order, which directed local and federal authorities to fight what it called "endemic vagrancy" in US cities.

Though the Trump administration claims that it has helped to find shelter for those living in the homeless encampments demolished by federal agents, homeless people and advocates in the city told CNN in a report published Monday that federal law enforcement "just told homeless people to move from encampments when they were cleared" and have often taken their possessions, while providing them little assistance and foisting that responsibility onto the city.

Timmons' bill, which is scheduled to be marked up by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, would further the criminalization of homelessness by codifying it into federal law.

It would ban people in the District of Columbia from setting up or "making preparations" to set up temporary structures to sleep outside. It would also make it illegal to sleep inside a car. Those found in violation will be subject to fines up to $500 or up to 30 days in prison.

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It is one of several bills Congress will consider that could tighten federal control over Washington, DC. Brianne Nadeau, a member of DC's city council, said it and other bills "will do direct and serious harm to the district" and represent "an unprecedented attack on home rule and on the 700,000-plus residents that call DC home."

According to the most recent data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are about 5,600 people in Washington, DC experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness on a given night.

One recent investigation found that Trump's deployment of the National Guard to DC costs roughly four times as much as it would cost to provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

"Instead of making rent cheaper and helping people make ends meet, Congress is considering a bill that would jail or fine people who have no choice but to sleep outside," said the DC-based National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC). "That's shameful."

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The group and others urged voters around the country to contact their representatives and pressure them to oppose the bill.

"Friends outside of DC, we need your help. We have no vote in Congress, yet some people in Congress want to write our laws, and they want DC to lock people up for being homeless," the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless posted on X. "Tell Congress NO."

The NHLC said voters should instead urge Congress to back the Housing Not Handcuffs Act introduced by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) in June, following the Supreme Court's decision the year before to allow cities to ban homeless people from public spaces.

The Democratic bill would stop law enforcement from arresting and ticketing homeless people for camping on federal lands or asking for donations in public places, which advocates say would force Congress to look to long-term housing investment as a solution to homelessness rather than punitive measures to force people off the streets.

According to a May study published in the Policy Studies Journal, the first to ever look at the effects of homelessness criminalization on a national scale, cities that passed ordinances banning outdoor camping have not only failed to reduce homelessness, but actually saw slight increases in their unhoused populations.

Trump's punitive approach to homelessness is broadly unpopular. In a February YouGov survey conducted with the ACLU, 75% said that homelessness is primarily caused by the lack of affordable housing rather than an issue of crime, while 77% said they believed it would be better solved by housing and expanding social services rather than arrests.

"Imposing a $500 fine or sending an unhoused person to jail for 30 days is cruel and shameful," Nadeau said. "Being unhoused is not a crime."

An anti-war vigil that has been a fixture in Washington DC's Lafayette Square since the 1980s was taken down over the weekend under orders from US President Donald Trump.

The Associated Press reports that the vigil, which was first erected in 1981 by activist William Thomas to promote nuclear disarmament, was removed by the Park Police on Sunday morning, just days after Trump indicated that he wanted it gone.

Philipos Melaku-Bello, a man who has manned the vigil for years on a volunteer basis, said that law enforcement officials falsely accused him of setting up an illegal shelter.

"The difference between an encampment and a vigil is that an encampment is where homeless people live," Melaku-Bello told the AP. "As you can see, I don't have a bed. I have signs and it is covered by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression."

Melaku-Bello added that he's been in touch with attorneys who may help him file a civil rights complaint against the Trump administration, whom he accused of "choosing to call a place that is not an encampment an encampment just to fit what is in Trump's agenda of removing the encampments."

Trump has deployed the National Guard to the nation's capital to "end vagrancy" and forcibly displace unhoused people who live in encampments in the city.

As the AP noted, the vigil first came to Trump's attention this past Friday when right-wing journalist Brian Glenn of Real America's Voice asked the president about the vigil, which he described as an "eyesore" that had "morphed into... an anti-American, sometimes anti-Trump" display.

"Take it down," Trump said in response to Glenn. "Take it down today, right now."

The president's threat against the peace vigil came days after he signed an executive order in an effort to rename the Department of Defense "the Department of War," and as he suggested his administration is going to "war" against major US cities as it carries out its anti-immigration agenda.

The removal of the vigil also came on the same weekend where tens of thousands of Washington, DC residents marched to the White House to demand Trump end his deployment of the National Guard in their city, which he has baselessly claimed is necessary to stop crime in the nation's capital.

The heart of Washington, D.C., pulsed with defiance on Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators surged down 16th Street toward the White House. It was the city’s first major organized protest since President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency and unleashed federal troops onto its streets. Banners waved and voices rose in unison at the “We Are All D.C.” march, a massive show of resistance led by a coalition that included Free DC, defenders of local self-rule, Democracy Forward, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Their message was clear: the federal occupation of the capital must end.

People participate in the "We Are All DC" national march in solidarity with DC communities and calling for an end to the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, DC, on September 6, 2025.(Photo by AMID FARAHI/AFP via Getty Images)

“Today, in defense of the people and communities living under a military takeover of DC, we join in sending a clear and peaceful message: the American people will not bow to dictators. We are in solidarity with our neighbors and Black, Brown, immigrant, and other communities targeted. We will march, we will resist, and we will peacefully protest,” Democracy Forward wrote in a statement on X.

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With Trump vowing crackdowns in other Democratic-led cities as well, he appeared to threaten Chicago with migrant deportations in a social media post with an image that parodied the 1979 Vietnam war movie "Apocalypse Now."

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” Trump said, converting a line about napalm in the Vietnam War to refer to deportations. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

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Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration aiming to end what he described as the "illegal deployment" of National Guard troops in the nation's capital.

In a complaint filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Schwalb charged the Trump administration with violating the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, a 1973 law that delegated certain powers over the city once held by the federal government to local officials.

The complaint zeroed in on Trump's claim that Washington, DC is a "filthy and crime-ridden embarrassment" that should be "federalize[d]," so that the Trump administration can "run it the way it's supposed to be run." Schwalb then noted that Trump deployed National Guard forces in DC without receiving consent from local elected officials.

"None of this is lawful," he said. "For one thing, defendants' deployment of National Guard units to police district streets without the mayor's consent violates both the Home Rule Act and a congressionally approved compact governing the interstate mobilization of state National Guard troops."

Schwalb also charged the administration with violating the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars the US military from being used for domestic law enforcement.

"Defendants have established a massive, seemingly indefinite law enforcement operation in the district subject to direct military command," he argued. "The danger that such an operation poses to individual liberty and democratic rule is self-evident."

The state of California also accused Trump of breaking the Posse Comitatus Act in its lawsuit against Trump's use of National Guard forces in Los Angeles; a federal court ruled that deployment was illegal this week.

Schwalb's lawsuit comes as new reports published by CNN and Mother Jones revealed that the deployment to Washington, DC is taking its toll on National Guard members, who have been sent far away from their families for a mission that is bogged down by legal and political controversy.

CNN''s report featured interviews with several National Guard soldiers who expressed bewilderment at what their mission in the city was supposed to be, as one explained that his only duty seems to be walking around Chinatown for 12 hours a day, while another said she regularly gets cursed at by locals.

"We haven't gotten critically low on morale, but we're falling fast," one soldier told CNN.

A National Guard soldier who spoke with Mother Jones told a similar story, and said he felt that he and his fellow soldiers were being used as political props.

"I think people have hit their limit," he said. "This is an encroachment on everything we signed up for, and it feels like a violation. They just see us as little toy soldiers to put on the street to show some muscle. There's no clear mission or understanding of that mission."

Trump in recent weeks has said that he will soon be sending the National Guard into Chicago, despite warnings from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and other local officials that such a military presence is not wanted in the city. The president has made baseless claims about high crime rates in large cities across the country; as Common Dreams reported last month, crime is falling in all of the cities Trump has threatened to send troops into.

Following US President Donald Trump's declaration that "we're going on" with a deployment of federal agents to Chicago, the nation's third-largest city and a frequent target of fearmongering by the president, Congresswoman Delia Ramirez led Democratic lawmakers in condemning the White House's threat to militarize federal troops in cities across the country.

Trump's persistent, baseless claims that large cities like Washington, DC; Chicago; and Los Angeles are facing violent crime waves are part of an attempt, suggested Ramirez (D-Ill.), to distract from the fact that his administration and Republicans in Congress are slashing funding that millions of people rely on.

"We have less than 30 days to pass a spending budget," said Ramirez, who represents parts of Chicago. "And yet here we are, the president is attempting to send the National Guard and terrorize cities instead of actually funding the government. See, we don't need Trump's troops on our streets. What we need and what our constituents continue to say is that we need an investment in our neighborhoods. We need an investment in food for our tables, healthcare for our families, and safety that is rooted in justice and opportunity."

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Trump's comments about Chicago came Tuesday and followed plans to deploy 200 Homeland Security officials to the city and use a nearby naval base as a staging area, as part of his nationwide anti-immigration crackdown.

The White House has said it's overseen the arrests of more than 65,000 people by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Trump took office in January, but the Cato Institute found in June that 65% of people rounded up by the agency had no criminal conviction, while 93% had no conviction for violence offenses.

Trump's threat against Chicago also came as a federal judge ruled that his use of federal troops in Los Angeles was illegal. The president deployed Marine and National Guard soldiers to the city more than two months ago, and about 300 members of the National Guard remain there to crack down on protests against ICE raids and "ensure that federal immigration law was enforced."

Last month, the president sent the National Guard to Washington, DC and federalized the police force of the nation's capital, claiming he planned to rid the city of "slums" and ordering the destruction of encampments inhabited by homeless people.

Since that deployment, law enforcement agents have subjected local residents to illegal searches and unfairly charged them with serious crime, threatening them with lengthy prison sentences.

On Wednesday, Ramirez noted that as with ICE raids that are targeting people without criminal records despite Trump's claims to the contrary, the president is threatening to send troops to cities including Chicago to crack down on crime waves that aren't happening.

Thanks to investments in communities across Chicago, said Ramirez, "violent crime rates have fallen 22% today. Homicides are down more than 33% in the past year, while shootings are down by 38%."

Trump's actions in Washington, DC and his threats against Chicago, added the congresswoman, "are not just about one city."

"When armed troops are sent into American communities to suppress protests, to target civil society leaders, or to facilitate the disappearance of our neighbors, it is not just a local issue," said Ramirez. "It strikes at the core of our very own democracy... This moment demands courage. It demands that we understand that we must obstruct and do everything we can to oppose any of these authoritarian against our cities."

Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) also spoke at the press conference, warning that Trump's threat against Chicago is a "dangerous sign that the president is signaling to turn American troops on American citizens on American soil."

Ramirez said legislative action, legal challenges, and organizing on the ground are needed to fight back against Trump's attacks on cities.

At the press conference, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said she was introducing two bills to give Washington, DC full control over the National Guard and its police department, and renewed her call for the passage of legislation that would grant statehood to the nation's capital.

"Our local police force should not be subject to federalization, an action that wouldn't be possible for any other police department in the country," said Norton. "Although DC's lack of statehood makes it more vulnerable to the president's abuses of power, he has frequently made it known that his authoritarian ambitions do not end with DC."

A grand jury on Tuesday reportedly refused to hand down a felony indictment against Sean Dunn, a former paralegal at the United States Department of Justice who hurled a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer earlier this month.

Two sources have told The New York Times that federal prosecutors came up empty in their first attempt to get a grand jury to charge Dunn with felony assault against a federal officer, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison.

The New York Times described this development as a "remarkable failure" and "a sharp rebuke by ordinary citizens against the team of prosecutors who are dealing with the fallout from President Trump's move to send National Guard troops and federal agents into the city on patrol."

Video of Dunn hurling a sandwich at the officer quickly went viral earlier this month. Before he threw the sandwich, Dunn was heard calling the officers "fascists," and telling them they were not welcome in his city.

Shortly after, current US Attorney and former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro vowed to throw the proverbial book at Dunn for his food-tossing transgressions.

"He thought it was funny," Pirro said in a video she posted on social media. "Well, he doesn't think it's funny today because we charged him with a felony. And we're gonna back the police to the hilt! So, there. Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else."

This is at least the second time in recent days that Pirro's office has failed to secure a grand jury indictment for alleged assault of a federal officer.

The New York Times reported on Monday that federal prosecutors had reduced charges against a woman named Sidney Lori Reid, who was accused of assaulting an FBI agent during a protest against Trump's immigration policies last month. The decision to refile Reid's case as a misdemeanor came after prosecutors failed on three separate occasions to convince a grand jury to charge her with felony offenses.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he wants to bring the death penalty back to Washington, DC, where capital punishment has been outlawed for more than 40 years.

In a cabinet meeting, Trump pitched bringing back the death penalty as part of his purported solution to what he claims is Washington, DC's violent crime crisis—one that isn't backed up by data.

"Anybody murders something in the capital? Capital punishment," Trump said. "If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, DC, we're going to be seeking the death penalty. And it's a very strong preventative. And everybody that's heard it agrees with it. I don't know if we're ready for it in this country... we have no choice. So in DC and Washington, states are going to have to make their own decision, but if somebody kills somebody... it's the death penalty, OK?"

It's unclear how Trump would implement the death penalty given that the DC Council abolished it in 1981 and DC voters overwhelmingly voted against a referendum to bring it back in 1992. However, the Trump administration has been trying to hit alleged criminals in the city with federal charges that could potentially expose them to harsher punishments.

Prosecutors in DC are permitted to seek the death penalty for certain crimes, including some homicides, but a jury has to agree to it.

Trump has a long history of glorifying the death penalty dating back to at least 1989, when he took out a full-page newspaper ad in which he declared it was time to "bring back the death penalty" to deal with crime in New York City.

The Trump ad was printed in the wake of five Black male teenagers—known popularly as the "Central Park Five"—being falsely accused of brutally beating and raping a woman in Central Park. Even after the five men were eventually exonerated years later, Trump refused to acknowledge their innocence and continued to insist upon their guilt, as recently as during the 2024 presidential election campaign.

In the last months of his first term, Trump went on what one publication called an "execution spree," ordering the federal executions of at least 13 people who were on Death Row.

An executive order signed Monday by US President Donald Trump may permit "random fascist vigilantes" to help him crack down on protests across the country, according to one prominent civil rights lawyer.

The new order, which comes amid wider concern about Trump's militarized takeover of Washington, DC, directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to ensure that each state's National Guard is equipped to "assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety."

To that end, it orders the secretary to create a "standing National Guard quick reaction force" that "can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate," not just in the nation's capital but in "other cities where public safety and order has been lost."

Monday's order calls for the creation of "an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience." Agency heads then "shall each deputize the members of this unit to enforce federal law."

Alec Karakatsanis, the executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, described it in a post on X as "an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers," adding that it was "one of the scariest things I've seen in US politics in my adult life."

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported on an internal memo discussing the creation of a "quick reaction force," which outlined its objectives in clearer detail.

It called for 600 National Guard troops to be "on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour," to "American cities facing protests or other unrest." It did not specifically mention the involvement of civilians.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the pro-democracy advocacy group Public Citizen, said on Monday that the executive order represents a dangerous expansion of Trump's authoritarian takeover.

"Freedom of speech and the right to assembly are foundational constitutional rights, and the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of the military domestically," Gilbert warned in a statement. "The moves outlined in this overreaching and unnecessary executive action undercut those foundational rights and are egregious steps by a wanna-be-dictator who is placing the pursuit of power above the well-being of our country."

During his second term, Trump has maintained friendly relations with far-right militia groups. He pardoned over a thousand people involved in the violent insurrection of January 6, 2021, including members of the militant Proud Boys group, which Trump infamously told to "stand back and stand by" amid 2020's racial justice protests in American cities.

He has also met with its leader, Enrique Tarrio, who, along with Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes, had previously suggested after his pardon that their groups could help Trump serve "retribution" upon his enemies.

The Oath Keepers also notably used the same term "quick reaction force" to refer to its efforts to transfer weapons across state lines to have them ready in DC to help with efforts to overturn Trump's election loss on January 6.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration—attempting to swell the ranks of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—eliminated degree requirements for new recruits, lowered the minimum age to 18, and introduced a fat $50,000 signing bonus, along with student loan relief.

In The Atlantic, technology reporter Ali Breland noted that members of the Proud Boys he'd been monitoring "seemed to be particularly pleased by the government's exciting career opportunity."

Since Trump took over law enforcement in Washington, DC, onlookers have described and documented countless egregious civil rights violations.

Jesse Rabinowitz of the DC-based National Homeless Law Center has described the dystopian scene on the ground in a post on X.

"There are full-on police checkpoints most nights," he said. "Every day, multiple friends see ICE kidnapping people. Daycares are scared to have kids go on walks due to ICE."

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According to research by the libertarian Cato Institute published earlier this month, one in five people arrested by ICE have been Latinos with no criminal past or removal orders against them from the government, which they called a "telltale sign of illegal profiling."

Karkatsanis warns that through his latest order, Trump has created a "vigilante portal" where anyone can "sign up to be a Brownshirt to brutalize poor people, immigrants, people of color, and anyone else who might dare to, say, go to a protest."

He says that it "should be a nonstop emergency news alert," but that "instead, mainstream news and Democrats are barely mentioning it."

US President Donald Trump has attempted to portray his deployment of National Guard troops and other federal agents in Washington, DC as a boon for public safety.

Inside DC courtrooms, however, judges and defense attorneys have expressed alarm at the tactics being used by law enforcement officers to unfairly charge local residents with serious crimes that carry lengthy prison sentences.

NPR reports that US Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui expressed incredulity on Monday while dismissing weapons charges against a Maryland resident named Torez Riley, who was subjected to what the judge described as "without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life."

While reviewing the case, the judge said that law enforcement officials seem to have targeted Riley for a search simply because he was a Black man carrying what appeared to be a heavy backpack.

"I'm absolutely flabbergasted at what has happened," Faruqui said. "A high school student would know this was an illegal search."

The Department of Justice had agreed to drop the charges after body camera footage of Riley's arrest showed officers searching him without probable cause, but Faruqui said that was cold comfort for a defendant who had already spent the last week behind bars.

"We don't just charge people criminally and then say, 'Oops, my bad,'" the judge said. "I'm at a loss how the US Attorney's office thought this was an appropriate charge in any court, let alone the federal court."

Faruqui also noted that judges in his court "on multiple occasions" in recent weeks had taken the highly unusual step of moving to suppress search warrants used against suspects, which makes them inadmissible to use in court.

NPR's report echoes an article in The New York Times earlier this week that detailed some of the difficulties the government is having in making some of its charges stick in the wake of Trump's DC crackdown.

In its report, the Times focused the arrest of 28-year-old Amazon delivery driver named Mark Bigelow, who was hit with federal felony charges for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officials who were attempting to detain him over a misdemeanor offense of possessing an open container of alcohol.

"As he was placed in a vehicle, the handcuffed Mr. Bigelow became belligerent, twisting his body and yelling, 'Get off me! Y'all too little, bro!' at an ICE agent, according to a court filing, which described how Mr. Bigelow made 'physical contact' by kicking an agent in the hand and another in the leg," reported the Times. "As a result, Mr. Bigelow was charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer, an offense that carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison."

Federal public defender Elizabeth Mullin said in court last week that Bigelow would never have been charged with a federal felony were it not for the president's decision to send federal agents swarming the streets of the nation's capital.

"He was caught up in this federal occupation of DC," she said. "This was a case created by federal law enforcement."

The Times also reported on Monday that federal prosecutors had reduced charges against a woman named Sidney Lori Reid, who was accused of assaulting an FBI agent during a protest against Trump's immigration policies last month. The decision to refile Reid's case as a misdemeanor came after prosecutors failed on three separate occasions to convince a grand jury to charge her with felony offenses.

Attorneys Tezira Abe and Eugene Ohm, who have been representing Reid, said that the grand juries' refusal to indict their client on three separate occasions indicated fatal weaknesses in the government's case.

"The US attorney can try to concoct crimes to quiet the people, but in our criminal justice system, the citizens have the last word," they said. "We are anxious to present the misdemeanor case to a jury and to quickly clear Ms. Reid's name."

US President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Monday aimed at ending the policy of cashless bail for people accused of crimes, a move criminal justice reform advocates say will heighten the already massive inequality within the system while doing little to stop lawbreaking.

One order requires Washington, DC, which the president currently controls under "emergency authority," to end its cashless bail program. The other directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify other jurisdictions around the country with cashless bail so that they can have their federal funds restricted or suspended.

Several states, including Illinois, New York, California, and New Jersey, have moved to significantly reduce or eliminate the use of cash requirements for those accused of crimes to be released pretrial. DC, meanwhile, was one of the first cities to implement the policy.

Jeremy Cherson, communications director for the Bail Project, told Common Dreams that cash bail creates a "two-tiered system of justice—one where people with money, regardless of risk, can pay bail and be released, whereas people without money will be detained, maybe unnecessarily, just because they can't afford to pay a bail amount."

More than 70% of the people currently held in jails—over 400,000 people—have not been convicted of a crime and are instead awaiting trial, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. In 2022, a report by the US Commission on Civil Rights found that 60% of them were there because they could not afford to pay bail.

People in pretrial detention are disproportionately racial minorities and those in poverty. A 2021 study by the Brookings Institution found that the average person in pretrial detention loses $30,000 on average during the process.

"Cash bail is a system that preys on poor people," Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, told Common Dreams. "They can lose their jobs and their housing. They can get disconnected from critical medical care that they might need. It's a very destabilizing experience."

Trump has claimed that cashless bail allows criminals to get out of jail without punishment and has caused cities to become cesspools of criminality.

"Somebody kills somebody, they go and don't worry about it," Trump told reporters on Monday as he signed the order. "No cash. Come back in a couple of months. We'll give you a trial. You never see the person again."

In a press conference earlier this month, Trump claimed that "every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster."

"That's what started the problem in New York, and they don't change it," he said. "That's what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that's central, no cash bail."

But as Cherson explained, cashless bail policies are not a "get-out-of-jail-free card."

"They are often measured, calculated approaches that create a system and processes where people are evaluated for risks of flight or risks to other individuals if they're released, and a series of conditions are set against them, or they're detained pretrial," he says. "They're not all let out. So that's often misunderstood about what bail reform is."

Instead of using financial means, judges determine who will remain in detention based on an individual's flight risk or the danger they may pose to the community.

The key, Cherson says, is that "they need to have individualized hearings where we are making determinations about what happens if we release somebody based on more than a hunch."

According to an investigation by FactCheck.org, across all the states that have ended or limited cash bail, only one person charged with murder has ever been released without bail. A Rockville, Illinois, judge released the defendant in 2024 because the case against him was exceptionally weak, and the judge still required him to meet "fairly strict requirements" while awaiting trial.

"There is nothing to suggest that cashless bail makes cities less safe," Bertram said.

In 2023, PPI examined four states and nine cities and counties that had ended cashless bail. They found that every single one of these jurisdictions had "decreases or negligible increases in crime or rearrest rates after implementing reforms."

Many of the other major cities Trump has threatened with a federal military takeover, including Chicago and New York, have experienced massive drops in crime over the past year, contrary to Trump's claims.

Bertram said that in Washington, DC, where Trump has directly ended cashless bail, the program had been "extremely effective."

In 2022, the last year for which data is available, 93% of those released without bail were not rearrested. In 2019, the most recent year with data, 99% of those who were released for violent crimes were not rearrested.

According to its website, the Bail Project has provided free bail to 34,000 people across the country. Despite the lack of financial incentive, in 2024, 95% of its clients still returned to court, and 64% of them had their cases dismissed.

"Absent our intervention," Cherson says, "many of those people would have likely taken a guilty plea just to go home. They would have been overwhelmed by the circumstances that they're in."

"Crime is something that's very complicated," Bertram said. "It's caused by a lot of different things, including a lot of social determinants."

She noted that the Trump administration has instituted dramatic cuts to programs to reduce gun violence, investigate crimes, and provide services to victims, and to "all of the things that we know to be related to the social determinants of crime"—social safety net programs like Medicaid, investments in affordable housing, and services for those dealing with homelessness, addiction, and mental health issues.

Bertram said, "It is a useful distraction from the president's disinvestment in all those things to put this order in place about cash bail as if it's going to make any difference, which it's not."

"All these states, localities, and jurisdictions that have pursued efforts to minimize or eliminate the use of cash bail have done that in service of the core principles of our justice system," Cherson said. "Principles of equity and fairness and safety and the presumption of innocence."

O armamento de algumas tropas na capital dos EUA é a mais recente escalada, enquanto o presidente promete atacar outras cidades lideradas por democratas negros

Algumas unidades da guarda nacional que patrulham a capital dos EUA sob as ordens de Donald Trump começaram a portar armas de fogo, uma escalada da mobilização militar do presidente que cumpre uma diretiva emitida no final da semana passada por seu departamento de defesa.

Um funcionário do Departamento de Defesa, não autorizado a falar publicamente, afirmou que algumas unidades em determinadas missões em Washington, D.C., estariam armadas – algumas com revólveres e outras com rifles. O porta-voz afirmou que todas as unidades com armas de fogo haviam sido treinadas e operavam sob regras rígidas para o uso da força.

Um fotógrafo da Associated Press viu no domingo membros da Guarda Nacional da Carolina do Sul do lado de fora da Union Station com armas de fogo nos coldres.

Um comunicado da força-tarefa conjunta que assumiu o policiamento em Washington, D.C., afirmou que as unidades começaram a portar suas armas de serviço no domingo e que as regras militares determinam que a força deve ser usada “apenas como último recurso e exclusivamente em resposta a uma ameaça iminente de morte ou lesão corporal grave”. Afirmou que a força está comprometida em proteger “a segurança e o bem-estar” dos moradores de Washington.

O oficial de defesa que falou à Associated Press disse que apenas tropas em determinadas missões portariam armas, incluindo aquelas em patrulha para estabelecer uma presença policial em toda a capital. Aqueles que trabalham em transportes ou administração provavelmente permaneceriam desarmados.

Milhares de policiais da guarda nacional e federais estão patrulhando as ruas do distrito, provocando protestos esporádicos de moradores locais.

O desenvolvimento do esforço extraordinário de Trump para anular a autoridade policial dos governos estaduais e locais ocorre em um momento em que ele considera expandir as mobilizações para outras cidades lideradas pelos democratas, incluindo Baltimore, Chicago e Nova York.

Mais cedo no domingo, o presidente respondeu a uma oferta do governador de Maryland para acompanhá-lo em uma visita a Baltimore, dizendo que ele poderia, em vez disso, “enviar as ‘tropas'”.

O governador democrata Wes Moore criticou a demonstração sem precedentes de poder federal de Trump para combater o crime e a falta de moradia em Washington. Na semana passada, Moore convidou Trump para visitar seu estado para discutir segurança pública e caminhar pelas ruas.

Em uma publicação no Truth Social no domingo, Trump disse que Moore fez a pergunta “em um tom bastante desagradável e provocativo” e então levantou a possibilidade de repetir o deslocamento da guarda nacional que ele fez em Los Angeles, apesar das objeções do governador democrata da Califórnia, Gavin Newsom.

“O histórico de Wes Moore em crimes é péssimo, a menos que ele manipule seus números de criminalidade, como muitos outros ‘Estados Azuis’ estão fazendo”, escreveu Trump, citando um apelido pejorativo que usa com frequência para se referir ao governador da Califórnia. “Mas se Wes Moore precisar de ajuda, como Gavin Newscum precisou em Los Angeles, enviarei as ‘tropas’, o que está sendo feito na vizinha Washington, D.C., e rapidamente eliminarei a criminalidade.”

Moore disse que convidou Trump para Maryland “porque ele parece gostar de viver nessa feliz ignorância” sobre a melhora dos índices de criminalidade em Baltimore. Após um pico durante a pandemia que acompanhou as tendências nacionais, a taxa de crimes violentos em Baltimore caiu.

Os 200 homicídios registrados no ano passado representaram uma queda de 24% em relação ao ano anterior e de 42% desde 2021, segundo dados da cidade. Entre 2023 e 2024, a criminalidade violenta em geral caiu quase 8% e os crimes contra o patrimônio, 20%.

“O presidente passa o tempo todo falando de mim”, disse Moore no programa Face the Nation, da CBS, no domingo. “Eu passo o meu tempo falando das pessoas a quem sirvo.”

Trump está “espalhando um monte de mentiras sobre a segurança pública em Maryland”, disse Moore em um e-mail de arrecadação de fundos.

Em Washington, a criminalidade violenta atingiu os níveis mais baixos em mais de 30 anos. Mesmo assim, Trump reforçou o efetivo da Guarda Nacional e de policiais federais, e uma série de protestos se espalhou pela cidade durante o fim de semana, enquanto algumas esquinas normalmente movimentadas estavam visivelmente silenciosas. Em algumas das áreas mais populosas, moradores passaram por pequenos grupos de guardas nacionais, muitas vezes conversando entre si. Vídeos de prisões e detenções circularam nas redes sociais.

Trump afirmou que Chicago e Nova York são provavelmente seus próximos alvos, o que provocou forte resistência dos líderes democratas em ambos os estados. O Washington Post noticiou no sábado que o Pentágono passou semanas se preparando para uma operação em Chicago que incluiria tropas da Guarda Nacional e, possivelmente, forças da ativa.

Questionada sobre a reportagem do Post, a Casa Branca destacou os comentários anteriores de Trump discutindo seu desejo de expandir o uso de forças militares para combater o crime local.

“Acho que Chicago será nossa próxima”, disse Trump a repórteres na Casa Branca na sexta-feira, acrescentando: “E então ajudaremos Nova York”.

Trump descreveu repetidamente algumas das maiores cidades do país – governadas por democratas, com prefeitos negros e populações majoritariamente minoritárias – como perigosas e imundas. O prefeito de Baltimore, Brandon Scott, é negro, assim como Moore. O Distrito de Columbia e Nova York também têm prefeitos negros.

O reverendo Al Sharpton, falando durante um evento religioso no domingo na Universidade Howard, em Washington, disse que a presença da guarda na capital do país não tinha a ver com crime: “Trata-se de nos traçar um perfil”.

“Isso está impregnado de intolerância e racismo”, explicou o ativista dos direitos civis posteriormente aos repórteres. “Nenhum prefeito branco foi nomeado. E eu acho que isso é uma questão de direitos civis, uma questão racial e uma questão de estado do Distrito de Columbia.”

O governador de Illinois, JB Pritzker, um democrata, disse que não havia nenhuma emergência que justificasse o envio de tropas da guarda nacional para Chicago.

“Donald Trump está tentando fabricar uma crise, politizar os americanos que servem uniformizados e continuar abusando de seu poder para desviar a atenção da dor que está causando às famílias”, escreveu Pritzker no X.

O prefeito de Chicago, Brandon Johnson, disse que a cidade não precisava de “uma ocupação militar” e entraria com uma ação judicial para bloqueá-la. Ele afirmou que não houve nenhuma comunicação da Casa Branca sobre um possível envio militar.

“Não vamos entregar nossa humanidade a esse tirano”, disse Johnson no domingo na MSNBC.

Publicado originalmente pelo The Guardian em 25/08/2025

O post Guarda Nacional começa a portar armas de fogo em DC enquanto Trump diz que Chicago pode ser a próxima apareceu primeiro em O Cafezinho.

Leading Democrats this weekend accused US President Donald Trump of ginning up a fake "crisis" in order to justify his proposed military intervention in cities including Chicago, as National Guard troops continued their occupation of Washington, DC against a backdrop of popular protests.

Trump said Friday that Chicago—which is experiencing a double-digit dip in violent crime and a historic drop in homicides—is "probably next" in line for federal intervention after Washington, DC. Around 2,000 National Guard troops are deployed in the nation's capital and the administration has taken over the Metropolitan Police Department amid threats by the president to oust Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser for pointing out that violent crime has decreased dramatically in the city.

The president also threatened to deploy federal forces under the pretext of combating crime in cities including Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco. Violent crime is trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels.

Responding to Trump's threats, Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement Saturday that "there is no emergency that warrants the president of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders."

"Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families," the governor added.

In a Sunday morning interview on CNN, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said that "we should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he's deeply unpopular."

"I strongly support the statement that was issued by Gov. Pritzker making clear that there's no basis, no authority, for Donald Trump to potentially try to drop federal troops into the city of Chicago," Jeffries added.

Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to then-Vice President Kamala Harris, asserted on the social media site Bluesky that "there is no emergency that merits whatever Trump is plotting in Chicago with the military. None."

"It's another bullshit manufactured crisis from a desperate president who wants to extend his power and score cheap political points," Nellis added.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago is the next city in his crosshairs for the kind of federal invasion and occupation currently underway in Washington, DC—a threat that sparked defiant pushback from officials in the Windy City and beyond.

"After we do this, we'll go to another location, and we'll make it safe also," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to his federalization of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops from the district and five Republican-controlled states.

"We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we'll straighten that one out probably next," the president said, referring to progressive Brandon Johnson. "That will be our next one after this. And it won't even be tough."

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On August 11, Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency in Washington, DC, despite violent crime being down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966, according to official statistics. Critics have noted that Trump's crackdown isn't just targeting criminals, but also unhoused and mentally ill people, who have had their homes destroyed and property taken.

On Friday, Trump threatened to completely take over Washington and oust Mayor Muriel Bowser if she does not stop pointing out that crime has decreased in the city, which the president called a "crime-infested rat hole."

In addition to Chicago, Trump has threatened to send federal forces into cities including Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco. Violent crime is trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels.

Unlike in Washington, DC, where home rule laws allow the federal government to take control of local police, Trump would face greater obstacles to intervention in other cities.

"President Trump can't seize control of the Chicago police or any other local department outside of DC," Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) noted on social media Friday. "The military cannot and will not patrol the streets of Chicago, and I will work with state and local officials to ensure that doesn't happen."

Mayor Johnson said in a statement that "the problem with the president's approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound."

"If the Trump administration is serious about driving down violence in Chicago, or anywhere else in America, then he should not have taken over $800 million away from violence prevention," he added.

Other elected officials in Illinois also expressed anger and alarm at the prospect of a Trump intervention in Chicago.

"After using Los Angeles and Washington, DC as his testing ground for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly flirting with the idea of taking over other states and cities," Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said on X.

"Trump's goal is to incite fear in our communities and destabilize existing public safety efforts—all to create a justification to further abuse his power," the governor continued. "He's playing a game and creating a spectacle for the press to play along with."

"We don't play those games," Pritzker added. "Our commitment to law and order is delivering results. Crime rates are improving. Homicides are down by more than 30% in Chicago in the last year alone. Our progress in lowering crime has been made possible with [community violence intervention] programs that they’re defunding."

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, a Democrat running for US Senate, said that "if Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city."

"Chicago doesn't bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators," she added. "As a Black woman from the South Side, I can assure you... your political circus isn't welcome here."

Congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) wrote on social media, "President Trump: You are not welcome in Chicago."

"Sending the National Guard endangers Black communities already overpoliced and under-invested in," she added. "If you cared about saving lives, you'd pass gun safety laws and fund community violence intervention."

US President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to oust Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and to have the federal government fully assume control of the nation's capital.

While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that Washington, DC under Bowser's leadership has been "unsafe" and "horrible."

"Mayor Bowser better get her act straight, or she won't be mayor very long, because we'll take it over with the federal government, running it like it's supposed to be run," said Trump. "It was a crime-infested rat hole, and they do have a lot of rats, and we're getting rid of them too, and we've made a lot of progress."

In reality, crime in Washington, DC had been falling before Trump decided to deploy the National Guard and other federal agents into the city. As Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb recently recounted, "Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year."

Shortly after attacking Washington, DC, the president said he was pushing for the National Guard to be deployed across other American cities.

"After we do [Washington, DC], we'll go to another location and make it safe also," he said. "We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we'll straighten that one out probably next, that'll be our next one after this, and it won't even be tough."

Trump then suggested sending the National Guard to New York.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is currently running for the United States Senate, warned Trump against sending the National Guard to her state's biggest city.

"If Trump wants to take his ego trip on tour, he picked the wrong city," she said. "Chicago doesn't bow down to kings or roll out the red carpet for dictators. As a Black woman from the South Side, I can assure you... your political circus isn't welcome here."

Polling released this week by The Washington Post showed that Trump's National Guard deployment is massively unpopular with DC residents, as 79% of residents surveyed said they disapproved of the deployments, including 69% who said they strongly disapproved.

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.

But according to an investigation published on Wednesday by Hanna Homestead of the National Priorities Project, in collaboration with The Intercept, deploying the National Guard and "getting rid of the slums" is costing far more than it would cost to simply provide housing to every homeless person in the city.

Governors from six US states have sent troops to Washington to help Trump's effort, swelling the ranks to nearly 2,100 who will soon be on patrol.

According to previous reporting, National Guard deployments cost the US government $530 per guard member each day. Using that figure, Homestead estimated that it would cost just over $1.1 million.

She added that "the number of troops will likely continue to grow. And with no deadline for the DC deployment, those costs could add up for months or even years."

According to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are about 5,600 people experiencing either sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in DC on a given night. Operating an affordable housing unit for each one of them, the data shows, costs about $45.44 per person, per day, on average in DC.

Providing affordable housing to every homeless person in DC would cost an estimated $255,166, which is 4.3 times less than the cost of Trump's military deployment.

"Taxpayers like you and me bear the cost of this cruel power grab," Homestead said. "This militarized spending comes at the expense of federal programs—like public housing—that actually do prevent crime and improve health and education outcomes."

Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that over 70 encampments had been cleared since Trump's order to federalize the police. She also said that over 600 people had been arrested, though it was not specified how many of them were homeless.

Trump has sought to conflate homelessness with criminality, suggesting that the nation's capital had been "overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people."

While his solution has been a show of military force against people with nowhere to go, a large body of research suggests that the approach of providing "Housing First"—meaning a stable place to stay with no preconditions for sobriety or treatment—reduces crime.

A 2021 study from UCLA found that providing homeless people with targeted housing assistance reduced the probability of committing a crime by 80%.

"Arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside makes homelessness worse, wastes taxpayer money, and simply does not work," said Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center. "The solution to homelessness is housing and supports, not handcuffs and jails."

But in addition to a crackdown on the homeless, the Trump administration is also pushing to eliminate funds for public housing. The White House's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 slashes funding for HUD's Continuum of Care program, which provided cities with funding for initiatives to house the homeless.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.

"Arresting people for no reason other than the fact that they have no home is inhumane and unjust," said Amber W. Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "It is particularly cruel to do so knowing that federal and local housing programs have been slashed and that DC does not have enough shelter beds."

"Fines, arrests, and encampment evictions make homelessness worse, further traumatize our homeless neighbors while disconnecting them from community and support," said Dana White, Director of Advocacy at Miriam's Kitchen, a DC-based homeless services organization. "If policing resolved homelessness, we wouldn't have homelessness here in DC or anywhere else in this country."

Stephen Miller, the hardline immigrant-trashing adviser to US President Donald Trump, drew scorn and ridicule on Wednesday after he dismissed people protesting against the National Guard deployment in Washington, DC as elderly and ignorant "hippies."

During a visit to Union Station along with Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Miller took a shot at local residents who in recent days have demonstrated against Trump's takeover of their city's law enforcement.

"All these demonstrators that you've seen out here in recent days, all these elderly white hippies, they're not part of the city and never have been," Miller claimed. "We're gonna ignore these stupid white hippies that all need to go home and take a nap because they're all over 90 years old."

Hundreds of people over this past weekend took part in a "Free DC" protest against the presence of the National Guard and assorted federal agents patrolling the city, and many other spontaneous protests have erupted as local residents have regularly gathered to jeer federal officials carrying out operations in their neighborhoods.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, shared a photo on Bluesky of an event that took place in the city on Tuesday, and he pointed out that people of different ages and colors can be seen protesting against the presence of the National Guard in their city.

"I don't see one 'elderly white hippie' there," he remarked. "I do see a wide variety of ages, genders, and races; DC residents united in disgust at what Miller is cheering on."

Princeton historian Kevin Kruse also slammed Miller for failing to notice the diversity of the crowds protesting against Trump's DC initiative.

"Stephen Miller is apparently so racist he can’t even *see* nonwhite people on the streets of DC protesting his goons," he commented on Bluesky. "Wait, is *that* what they meant by 'colorblind conservatism?'"

Pam Fessler, author and former correspondent for NPR, gave Miller a swift fact check in a post on X.

"Besides Miller's nastiness, he's wrong," she explained. "Guess what? A majority of DC residents, regardless of race, oppose Trump's unnecessary just-for-show federal takeover."

A poll released by The Washington Post on Wednesday backs up this point, as it found that 79% of DC residents are opposed to Trump's takeover, including 69% who register as "strongly" opposed.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University College of Law, speculated on Bluesky that Miller is lashing out at "hippies" to make up for his own past inadequacies.

"Stephen Miller was a loser in college, and now we all must pay for it... sincerely, someone who remembers him from school," said Kreis, who attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the same time Miller was attending nearby Duke University.

Podcaster Bob Cesca, meanwhile, warned Miller to be careful in antagonizing Washington, DC residents.

"I take comfort in the idea that, for the rest of his miserable life, he'll wonder how much phlegm and/or feces has been added to his restaurant meals," he joked on X.

Tropas da Guarda Nacional de outros estados chegam a Washington para reforçar a repressão ordenada por Trump, afetando bairros imigrantes

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O bairro de Columbia Heights, em Washington, conhecido por sua diversidade cultural e pelo movimento constante de barracas vendendo pupusas, frutas frescas, artesanatos e roupas, amanheceu diferente nesta terça-feira (20). O cenário de ruas cheias e vozes em várias línguas foi substituído por silêncio e ausência de clientes.

“Tudo parou na última semana”, relatou Yassin Yahyaoui, comerciante que vende joias e estatuetas de vidro na região. Segundo ele, muitos de seus fregueses, em especial os que falam espanhol, “simplesmente desapareceram” após o endurecimento das ações federais.

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A mudança repentina na rotina é reflexo da decisão do presidente Donald Trump de reforçar a capital com policiais federais e agentes de imigração. Embora a presença de patrulhas tenha se concentrado inicialmente no National Mall e no centro de Washington, o impacto já é sentido em bairros residenciais e comerciais como Columbia Heights, historicamente marcados pela presença de imigrantes.

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Repressão sob críticas e desconfiança

A Casa Branca anunciou que centenas de prisões já foram realizadas dentro da operação, que Trump classifica como necessária para conter o que chama de “emergência criminal” em Washington. Autoridades locais, no entanto, têm criticado duramente a estratégia, acusando o governo federal de extrapolar sua autoridade e de interferir de maneira agressiva nos assuntos da cidade.

A tensão aumentou ainda mais quando o principal promotor federal de Washington, D.C., abriu uma investigação para apurar denúncias de que policiais estariam falsificando dados criminais. A apuração, revelada por uma fonte que pediu anonimato, pode fortalecer a narrativa da Casa Branca, mas contrasta com estatísticas oficiais que mostram melhora nos índices de segurança na região.

Nem o gabinete da prefeita de Washington, nem o departamento de polícia local quiseram comentar o caso.

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Tropas de fora reforçam presença nas ruas

Enquanto isso, militares da Guarda Nacional de outros estados começaram a chegar à capital. De acordo com a Força-Tarefa Conjunta do Distrito de Columbia (JTF-DC), soldados da Virgínia Ocidental, Carolina do Sul, Mississippi e Louisiana foram deslocados para a cidade nesta semana.

Essas tropas terão as mesmas funções dos membros da Guarda Nacional de Washington já mobilizados: proteger pontos turísticos, controlar multidões e reforçar a vigilância nas ruas. Segundo a JTF-DC, eles ficarão hospedados em alojamentos militares e hotéis da região enquanto durar a operação.

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Cidade em alerta

Com o aumento da repressão, o clima na capital norte-americana tornou-se de apreensão, sobretudo entre comunidades imigrantes que tradicionalmente movimentam a economia de bairros como Columbia Heights. Para comerciantes como Yahyaoui, a presença de militares e agentes federais já tem impacto direto nos negócios e na vida cotidiana.

A ampliação da operação marca uma nova fase da política de segurança de Trump, que promete manter a pressão sobre a capital e não descarta novas medidas. Enquanto isso, moradores e autoridades locais aguardam para ver até onde vai a intervenção federal — e quais serão suas consequências para a cidade.

A operação federal transforma a rotina nos bairros de Washington

As intervenções das autoridades federais tornaram-se visíveis em diversos pontos da cidade. A poucos quarteirões da loja de Yassin Yahyaoui, por exemplo, agentes do Serviço de Imigração e Alfândega dos EUA (ICE) e da polícia local interceptaram um entregador de pizza de moto. Os oficiais, trajando coletes táticos e dirigindo veículos sem identificação, interrogavam o homem e exigiam que apresentasse documentos relacionados ao emprego e ao status legal de residência. Nenhuma prisão foi efetuada, mas a abordagem reforçou o clima de tensão nos arredores.

Desde o início da operação, em 7 de agosto, a Casa Branca anunciou que 465 pessoas foram presas, incluindo 206 que estavam no país de forma irregular. O governo Trump tem intensificado a fiscalização migratória e, em 11 de agosto, o presidente assinou um decreto colocando o departamento de polícia da capital sob controle federal por 30 dias — qualquer extensão dependeria de aprovação do Congresso.

Segundo Karoline Leavitt, secretária de imprensa da Casa Branca, Trump estaria “defendendo sem pedir desculpas a segurança dos cidadãos americanos cumpridores da lei”.

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Comércio local sente os efeitos

No bairro de Columbia Heights, comerciantes relatam impactos diretos na economia local. Glorida Gomez, que trabalha há mais de dez anos em uma barraca de frutas, afirmou que os negócios atualmente estão piores do que durante a pandemia de COVID-19. Muitos vendedores decidiram não comparecer com medo de interações com agentes federais.

A situação também afeta os clientes. Reina Sosa, outra vendedora da região, contou que os consumidores “estão guardando dinheiro para o caso de algo acontecer”, referindo-se à possibilidade de detenções pela polícia de imigração. Já Ana Lemus, que também vende frutas, pediu mais humanidade por parte do governo. “Lembrem-se de que essas são pessoas afetadas. O governo deve proteger os membros da comunidade, não atacá-los ou discriminá-los”, afirmou.

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Prisões e confrontos registrados

Algumas prisões foram registradas em vídeo, aumentando a repercussão da operação. Na manhã de sábado, Christian Enrique Carias Torres foi detido durante uma briga com agentes do ICE, e as imagens circularam rapidamente pelas redes sociais. Segundo depoimento de um agente do FBI, Carias Torres chutou um dos oficiais na perna e outro ficou ferido ao cair e bater a cabeça na calçada. Para contê-lo, foi utilizada uma arma de choque, e ele foi acusado de resistir à prisão na terça-feira.

Em outras partes da cidade, a presença de múltiplas agências federais criou um cenário de grande tensão. No bairro de Petworth, cerca de 20 policiais do FBI, da Segurança Interna, da Polícia de Parques e dos Delegados dos EUA invadiram um prédio de apartamentos na manhã de terça-feira. Um morador foi algemado à vista de todos, enquanto Yanna Stelle, de 19 anos, que presenciou a ação, relatou ter ouvido conversas pelos walkie-talkies enquanto os agentes circulavam pelos corredores.

“Era muita polícia logo de manhã — principalmente para eles estarem apenas cumprindo um mandado”, comentou Stelle, impressionada com a força empregada pelas autoridades federais.

A movimentação de autoridades federais nas ruas de Washington, D.C., já é visível em bairros como Columbia Heights, Petworth e ao redor do National Mall. Desde que a operação começou em 7 de agosto, agentes do ICE, FBI, Polícia de Parques e delegados federais intensificaram a fiscalização de imigração e a presença em locais públicos, provocando mudanças profundas na rotina da cidade.

A vida dos comerciantes locais tem sido diretamente afetada. Barracas de frutas, joias e souvenirs, que antes enchiam as ruas, agora permanecem muitas vezes vazias. Glorida Gomez, que vende frutas há mais de dez anos, afirmou que o movimento está pior do que durante a pandemia de COVID-19, enquanto Reina Sosa disse que os clientes “guardam dinheiro para o caso de algo acontecer”. Ana Lemus, também vendedora, apelou por mais humanidade do governo, lembrando que “o governo deve proteger os membros da comunidade, não atacá-los ou discriminá-los”.

O clima de tensão se intensifica com abordagens e prisões registradas em vídeo. Em Petworth, cerca de 20 agentes federais invadiram um prédio de apartamentos, enquanto em outra parte da cidade Christian Enrique Carias Torres foi detido durante uma briga com agentes do ICE, usando-se até uma arma de choque para contê-lo.

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Mais tropas da Guarda Nacional chegam à capital

O governo Trump planeja ampliar ainda mais a presença federal em Washington. Além das 800 tropas da Guarda Nacional local, mais 1.100 soldados de outros estados devem chegar, incluindo unidades de Ohio e Tennessee. A Casa Branca defende a medida como necessária para “proteger os cidadãos americanos cumpridores da lei”, segundo Abigail Jackson, porta-voz da presidência.

No entanto, o movimento enfrenta resistência crescente. O deputado democrata Sam Liccardo, da Califórnia, apresentou um projeto exigindo relatórios detalhados sobre custos, base legal e interações da Guarda Nacional com civis. Quarenta e quatro colegas assinaram a proposta, incluindo a delegada sem direito a voto de Washington, Eleanor Holmes Norton. Liccardo questionou se ações como essa seriam um teste de uma “tomada autoritária mais ampla das comunidades locais”, lembrando que os fundadores do país desconfiavam do “controle executivo dos exércitos permanentes”.

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Limites e resultados da operação

Especialistas alertam que a presença da Guarda Nacional não substitui a polícia, já que os soldados não têm treinamento policial. Jeff Asher, analista criminal, ressaltou: “Não sei se é justo esperar muito da Guarda Nacional nesse contexto.”

O governo Trump, no entanto, comemorou os efeitos da operação. Em postagens nas redes sociais, o presidente afirmou que transformou Washington de “a ‘cidade’ mais insegura dos Estados Unidos” para “talvez a mais segura, e melhorando a cada hora!”. Dados da Polícia Metropolitana mostram que o número de crimes caiu cerca de 8% em relação à semana anterior, com quedas em roubos e furtos de veículos, estabilidade nos homicídios e leve aumento nos arrombamentos.

Apesar disso, especialistas alertam que uma semana é tempo insuficiente para avaliar mudanças reais. Asher afirmou que os 30 dias de controle federal sobre a polícia, permitidos pela lei de autonomia do Distrito de Columbia, representam “um período muito curto para realmente dizer qualquer coisa”.

Com informações de AP*

O post Capital americana vive clima sombrio com tropas de Trump apareceu primeiro em O Cafezinho.

Residents of Washington, DC are getting increasingly fed up with US President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard and other federal law enforcement officials in their city.

Zeteo journalist Prem Thakker reported on Tuesday that residents in Columbia Heights jeered and shouted at masked federal agents in their local Metro station who were apparently there to assist transit police in holding train fare evaders accountable.

While at the station, Thakker observed agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standing around an alleged fare evader alongside the transit police. This led Thakker to ask a police officer on the scene whether it was really the best use of HSI and FBI's time to have them tackling petty crimes.

"He first said they weren't [helping enforce anti-fare evasion laws]; it was only the local police who responded," wrote Thakker. "It was a confusing response, given all the agents we just saw at the scene. We then got into a lengthy back-and-forth... I repeatedly tried to re-focus the conversation on ICE and other federal agencies' roles. He said he can't speak to other agencies, while maintaining that they were all supporting each other."

Thakker then exited the station and saw a large crowd of people chanting at federal agents and telling them to get out of their neighborhood. The agents subsequently got into their unmarked vehicles and drove out of the area, which led to cheers from residents.

One woman who jeered the federal agents explained to Thakker why she opposed having them patrol DC's streets.

"I've seen them, purposely, walk up to Latino-Americans that don't speak proper English and then say to them, 'You don't speak English, you're going with me'—[they] don't ask no name, no citizenship, no anything," she told Thakker. "It's heartbreaking to see that these people come here to make their life different in America, and it's being sabotaged."

Data suggests that opposition to the presence of federal agents in the nation's capital is widespread. A poll of DC residents conducted by The Washington Post found that they "overwhelmingly" oppose Trump's deployment of National Guard and federal agents in their city.

All told, 79% of DC residents surveyed said they were opposed to Trump's actions, compared to only 17% who said they were supportive. What's more, the percentage of residents who said they "strongly oppose" the deployments stood at 69%, indicating broad and intense opposition to the president's initiative.

Mark Rozell, dean of George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, told the Post that it was little surprise that DC residents are rebelling against Trump's attempted takeover of their city's law enforcement operations.

"A federalized takeover of any aspect of a city's operations will naturally create a backlash, and that is clearly happening here," he said. "Residents are saying [crime] is not as bad as the president claims, and they want to reclaim the image of their city against a presidential narrative that is tarnishing DC's reputation."

Over the weekend, hundreds of DC residents took part in "Free DC" protests against the Trump takeover, and organizers have pledged to make them at least a weekly occurrence over the next several months.

He didn't like the latest jobs numbers, so he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and tapped a notorious yes-man to replace her.

He doesn't like "woke" history, so he ordered federal agencies and institutions to whitewash official accounts of the nation's troubled past.

Now US President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is investigating whether police officials in Washington, DC manipulated crime data as the president, a proven prolific liar, tries to justify his federal takeover of a city where violent crime is officially at historic lows.

"DC gave Fake Crime numbers in order to create a false illusion of safety. This is a very bad and dangerous thing to do, and they are under serious investigation for so doing!" Trump wrote Tuesday on his Truth Social network. "Until four days ago, Washington, DC was the most unsafe 'city' in the United States, and perhaps the World. Now, in just a short period of time, it is perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour! People are flocking to DC again, and soon, the beautification will begin!"

According to Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report data from 2024, Trump's statement wildly diverges from reality, as 28 cities had higher violent crime rates than Washington, DC.

Now, the same US Attorney's office that just this April lauded the drop in crime in the capital is probing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) amid pushback against Trump's federalization of the force and deployment of National Guard troops from five jurisdictions and other federal agents onto the streets of the city. The DOJ criminal probe will be led by the office of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

There have been multiple internal allegations that MPD manipulated crime data. In 2020, former MPD Sergeant Charlotte Djossou filed a lawsuit alleging that senior department officials routinely misclassified more serious crimes to artificially reduce their reported rate. The DC Police Union, led by Gregg Pemberton, has also accused MPD supervisors of ordering officers to downgrade violent crimes to lesser offenses.

Last month, MPD suspended Michael Pulliam, a senior officer who allegedly altered crime statistics in his district. However, Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, told The Washington Post Tuesday that MPD Chief Pamela Smith had investigated all seven of the city's police districts for possible crime data manipulation and found problems only in Pulliam's jurisdiction.

"We are not experiencing a spike in crime," Bowser insisted in a recent interview with MSNBC. "In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down."

As President Donald Trump escalates the US military occupation of Washington, DC—including by importing hundreds of out-of-state National Guard troops and allowing others to start carrying guns on missions in the nation's capital—the ACLU on Monday reminded his administration that federal forces are constitutionally obligated to protect, not violate, residents' rights.

"With additional state National Guard troops deploying to DC as untrained federal law enforcement agents perform local police duties in city streets, the American Civil Liberties Union is issuing a stark reminder to all federal and military officials that—no matter what uniform they wear or what authority they claim—they are bound by the US Constitution and all federal and local laws," the group said in a statement.

Over the weekend, the Republican governors of Ohio, South Carolina, and West Virginia announced that they are deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to join the 800 DC guardsmen and women recently activated by Trump, who also asserted federal control over the city's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency in a city where violent crime is down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966, according to official statistics. Critics have noted that Trump's crackdown isn't just targeting criminals, but also unhoused and mentally ill people, who have had their homes destroyed and property taken.

Contradicting assurances from military officials, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the newly deployed troops may be ordered to start carrying firearms. This, along with the president's vow to let police "do whatever the hell they want" to reduce crime in the city and other statements, have raised serious concerns of possible abuses.

"Through his manufactured emergency, President Trump is engaging in dangerous political theater to expand his power and sow fear in our communities," ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi said Monday. "Sending heavily armed federal agents and National Guard troops from hundreds of miles away into our nation's capital is unnecessary, inflammatory, and puts people's rights at high risk of being violated."

Shamsi stressed that "federal agents and military troops are bound by the Constitution, including our rights to peaceful assembly, freedom of speech, due process, and safeguards against unlawful searches and seizures. If troops or federal agents violate our rights, they must be held accountable."

On Friday, the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration to block its order asserting federal authority over the MPD, arguing the move violated the Home Rule Act. U.S. Attorney General Bondi subsequently rescinded her order to replace DC Police Chief Pamela Smith with Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole.

Also on Friday, a group of House Democrats introduced a resolution to terminate Trump's emergency declaration.

ACLU of DC executive director Monica Hopkins argued Monday that there is a way to curb Trump's "brazen abuse of power" in the District.

"We need the nation to join us in the fight for statehood so that DC residents are treated like those in every other state and have the same guardrails against federal overreach," she said.

As US President Donald Trump moves forward with a nationwide purge of homeless people from America's streets, his administration is moving to kill a program that has helped many of those in need find permanent housing.

The White House's fiscal year 2026 budget proposes ending a program under the Department of Housing and Urban Development known as Continuum of Care, which has helped cities across the country address or, in some cases, nearly eliminate their homelessness problem.

To receive federal funds, cities are required to adopt community-wide plans to end homelessness with the goal of moving people from the streets into shelters and then into stable housing.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness describes Continuum of Care as "the federal government's key vehicle for distributing homelessness funds."

As the Washington Post reports, Dallas has become a model for the program's effectiveness:

Instead of shuffling people to other neighborhoods, [the city] offered wraparound social services—and a permanent place to live.

The approach worked. Even as homelessness nationwide has surged to record levels, Dallas has emerged as a national model. The city declared an end to downtown homelessness in May after more than 270 people moved off the streets.

Other places, it says, have used Continuum of Care to substantially reduce homelessness, including San Bernardino, California, and Montgomery County, Maryland.

But the White House budget, unveiled in May, would eliminate Continuum of Care, instead shifting its resources to the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which prioritizes shelters and transitional housing, as well as mental health and substance abuse counselling, rather than "Housing First" solutions.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the administration's plan to consolidate the program "would place thousands of projects and the hundreds of thousands of people they serve at risk."

The Alliance estimated that the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.

In addition to eliminating Continuum of Care, the White House budget cuts $532 million in funding to the federal government's Homeless Assistance Grants account. That money, the Alliance says, could fund over 60,000 Rapid Re-Housing Units—enough to serve 8% of the US homeless population.

"Between 2023 and 2024, homelessness increased by 18%, yet this proposal would strip funding for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s homelessness programs by 12%," said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "That is a recipe for disaster. We know that these programs have been chronically underfunded for decades."

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has declared an all-out war on the nation's homeless population. In July, he signed an executive order requiring states and cities to remove homeless people from public places, expanding cases where they must be involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals, and requiring sobriety preconditions for them to receive housing assistance.

During his federal takeover of Washington, DC, Trump ordered homeless people in encampments to move "FAR from the Capital." Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said those who refuse to accept services at a shelter will face jail time.

The advocacy group Housing Not Handcuffs reported Friday that "police evicted and destroyed the property of homeless people throughout DC, throwing away people's personal belongings, including tents and other property."

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"Homelessness is a market failure, a housing problem," said Rob Robinson, a formerly homeless community organizer in New York City, in USA Today. "Rent prices have exceeded income gains by 325% nationally since 1985. Rates of homelessness are tied to rental affordability."

"The White House's recent moves toward the criminalization of homelessness and forced institutionalization," he said, "ignore decades of research and real-world outcomes."

"If Donald Trump really wanted to help people and solve homelessness, he would use his power to lower rents and help people make ends meet," said Jesse Rabinowitz from the National Homelessness Law Center. "Estimates show that taxpayers are spending over $400,000 a day for Trump to use the DC National Guard for photo ops. Why can they find money for that but not for housing and help?"

Residents of Washington, DC over the weekend demonstrated against US President Donald Trump's deployment of the National Guard in their city.

As reported by NBC Washington, demonstrators gathered on Saturday at DuPont Circle and then marched to the White House to direct their anger at Trump for sending the National Guard to Washington DC, and for his efforts to take over the Metropolitan Police Department.

In an interview with NBC Washington, one protester said that it was important for the administration to see that residents weren't intimidated by the presence of military personnel roaming their streets.

"I know a lot of people are scared," the protester said. "We've got the FBI patrolling the streets. We've got National Guard set up as a show of force. What's scarier is if we allow this."

Saturday protests against the presence of the National Guard are expected to be a weekly occurrence, organizers told NBC Washington.

Hours after the march to the White House, other demonstrators began to gather at Union Station to protest the presence of the National Guard units there. Audio obtained by freelance journalist Andrew Leyden reveals that the National Guard decided to move their forces out of the area in reaction to what dispatchers called "growing demonstrations."

Even residents who didn't take part in formal demonstrations over the weekend managed to express their displeasure with the National Guard patrolling the city. According to The Washington Post, locals who spent a night on the town in the U Street neighborhood on Friday night made their unhappiness with law enforcement in the city very well known.

"At the sight of local and federal law enforcement throughout the night, people pooled on the sidewalk—watching, filming, booing," wrote the Post. "Such interactions played out again and again as the night drew on. Onlookers heckled the police as they did their job and applauded as officers left."

Trump last week ordered the National Guard into Washington, DC and tried to take control the Metropolitan Police, purportedly in order to reduce crime in the city. Statistics released earlier this year, however, showed a significant drop in crime in the nation's capital.

As part of the ongoing battle against US President Donald Trump's "hostile takeover" of Washington, DC, key congressional Democrats on Friday introduced a resolution to terminate his executive order, "Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia."

The resolution explains that Trump "has failed to identify special conditions of an emergency nature that compel the use of the
Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes," and "even if properly invoked for an actual emergency, Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act does not empower the president to federalize" the MPD.

"Violent crime in the District of Columbia has declined for the past two years and currently stands at a 30-year low," the measure notes. Additionally, it points out, the GOP-controlled federal government this year has prevented DC from "spending $1 billion of its own locally raised revenues—money that was budgeted for essential public safety purposes, including law enforcement, fire and emergency response services, and schools."

The bill's lead sponsors tied Trump's federalization of the MPD to his efforts to distract from intense calls—including from his base—to release files related to the federal case against deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"The only emergency here is a lawless president experiencing a growing public relations emergency because of his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and his stubborn refusal to release the Epstein file despite his promise to do so," said US House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in a statement.

"Trump has made clear that his efforts in DC, where 700,000 taxpaying American citizens lack the protections of statehood, are part of a broader plan to militarize and federalize the streets of cities around America whose citizens voted against him," he added. Trump this week deployed the National Guard in the nation's capital and threatened to do the same in other US cities—including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland—where crime rates are also falling.

Like Raskin—who led the historic second effort to impeach the president after his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021—House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) framed the DC takeover as Trump "making every effort to distract America from Epstein."

In addition to Raskin and Garcia, the bill is sponsored by DC's sole representative in Congress, Democratic Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who can participate in most House proceedings but not vote on final passage of legislation.

"President Trump's incursions against DC are among the most egregious attacks on DC home rule in decades," she said. "DC residents are Americans, worthy of the same autonomy granted to residents of the states. Our local police force, paid for by DC residents, should not be subject to federalization, an action that wouldn't be possible for any other police department in the country."

"No emergency exists in DC that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the DC Police for federal purposes, as required by law," Norton continued. "I appreciate Ranking Member Raskin's enduring support for DC and for working with me to end this unprecedented, dangerous, and disgraceful violation of DC's right to govern its own local affairs."

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who will introduce the joint resolution in the upper chamber, noted that "Trump was AWOL when the District of Columbia actually needed support from the National Guard to protect it from an insurrectionist mob on January 6th."

"His current takeover is an abuse of power and nothing more than a raw power grab," Van Hollen added. "The District of Columbia has made important progress on public safety in recent years, and can do more if Trump and House Republicans get the hell out of their way and stop blocking D.C. from accessing $1 billion of its own funds to strengthen policing and provide other public services."

Earlier Friday, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit to block US Attorney General Pam Bondi from taking over the city's police department.

"I applaud DC for taking legal action to end the president's unlawful attempt to seize control of MPD," Norton said on social media, also highlighting the resolution in Congress. "DC is united in our resistance."

Washington, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb on Friday filed a lawsuit to block United States Attorney General Pam Bondi from taking over the US capital city's police department.

The lawsuit accused the Trump administration of violating the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, a 1973 law that delegated certain powers over the city once held by the federal government to local government officials.

Schwalb argued in the lawsuit that the Home Rule Act gives the president of the United States a very limited set of powers over the governance of the city's police force, as it states that the president may commandeer the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) if he "determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist" that require the MPD to help fulfill "federal purposes."

Schwalb further noted that the timeframe for this authority is extremely limited. In all, the president can take command of MPD for just 48 hours unless he sends proper notice to the US Congress, after which he will have command over it for a maximum of 30 days.

"For the president to obtain MPD's services for longer than 30 days—even in the face of an ongoing emergency—Congress must pass a joint resolution permitting the extension," Schwalb argued.

The DC attorney general then poked holes in Trump's claims that a federal takeover of MPD was necessary due to a crime emergency.

"The president did not identify any new or unusual exigency that justified the invocation of [emergency powers]," Schwalb alleged. "Instead, he claimed that violent crime in the district is 'increasing,' when, in fact, it has fallen 26% since 2024. The president also did not limit the scope of his order to specific 'federal purposes,' instead directing the mayor to provide any services the attorney general deemed necessary to 'maintain law and order in the Nation's seat of Government.'"

Schwalb also claimed that the Trump administration flatly broke the law when it appointed Terrance Cole, the current administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), to serve as MPD's "interim commissioner." He said that this action would greatly harm MPD's ability to enforce the law and maintain public safety.

"Imposing a new command structure 'effective immediately' will wreak operational havoc within MPD," he wrote. "The new command structure will create confusion for MPD personnel, who are required under district law to respect and obey the chief of police as the head and chief of the police force."

He emphasized that "this will also inevitably lead to delays and confusion as MPD personnel... are forced to run their directives by an 'Emergency Commissioner' who is unfamiliar with MPD procedures and the local communities MPD serves," before warning that "there is no greater risk to public safety in a large, professional police force like MPD than to not know who is in command."

Schwalb concluded his complaint by asking the court to vacate Bondi's order of the federal takeover of MPD, and also to permanently block DEA Administrator Cole from assuming "any position of command" within the department.

In a statement separate from the lawsuit itself, Schwalb charged that "the administration's unlawful actions are an affront to the dignity and autonomy of the 700,000 Americans who call DC home" and "this is the gravest threat to home rule that the district has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it."

"By declaring a hostile takeover of MPD," said Schwalb, "the administration is abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act, infringing on the district's right to self-governance and putting the safety of DC residents and visitors at risk."

Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert praised Schwalb's lawsuit and said it was a necessary step "for standing up to this administration's wild and unprecedented abuse of power."

"Declaring a fake emergency and placing our capital city under what looks like a military occupation has furthered the dystopian reality of this moment," Gilbert emphasized. "Donald Trump is an authoritarian president who is intent on dismantling the core safeguards of power-sharing in our democracy, and his actions must be resisted by every American of conscience."

Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said that his organization "stands shoulder‑to‑shoulder" with the DC attorney general in opposing Trump's takeover.

"Appointing the DEA head as 'emergency police commissioner' with full command over MPD is brazen overreach, unprecedented, and directly counter to the principles of democratic accountability and local autonomy enshrined in law," Eisen added.

The ACLU and a local branch of one of the nation's largest labor unions were among those who condemned Thursday's order by Washington, DC's police chief authorizing greater cooperation with federal forces sent by President Donald Trump to target and arrest undocumented immigrants in the sanctuary city.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith issued an executive order directing MPD officers to assist federal forces including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in sharing information about people in situations including traffic stops. The directive does not apply to people already in MPD custody. The order also allows MPD to provide transportation for federal immigration agencies and people they've detained.

While Trump called the order a "great step," immigrant defenders slammed the move.

"Now our police department is going to be complicit and be reporting our own people to ICE?" DC Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) said. "We have values in this city. Coordination and cooperation means we become a part of the regime."

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ACLU DC executive director Monica Hopkins said in a statement that "DC police chief's new order inviting collaboration with ICE is dangerous and unnecessary."

"Immigration enforcement is not the role of local police—and when law enforcement aligns itself with ICE, it fosters fear among DC residents, regardless of citizenship status," Hopkins continued. "Our police should serve the people of DC, not ICE's deportation machine."

"As the federal government scales up Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, including mass deportations, we see how local law enforcement face pressure to participate," she added. "Federal courts across the country have found both ICE and local agencies liable for unconstitutional detentions under ICE detainers. Police departments that choose to carry out the federal government's business risk losing the trust they need to keep communities safe."

Jaime Contreras, executive vice president and Latino caucus chair of 32BJ SEIU, a local Service Employees International Union branch, said, "It should horrify everyone that DC's police chief has just laid out the welcoming mat for the Trump administration to continue its wave of terror throughout our city."

"The very institution that is supposed to keep district residents safe is now allowing ICE to jeopardize the safety and lives of hardworking immigrants and their families," Contreras continued. "Their complicity is dangerous enough but helping to enforce Trump's tactics and procedures are a violation of the values of DC residents."

"DC needs a chief who will not cave to this administration's fear tactics aimed at silencing anyone who speaks out against injustice," Contreras added. "We call for an immediate end to these rogue attacks that deny basic due process, separates families, and wrongly deports hardworking immigrants and their families."

The condemnation—and local protests—came as dozens of immigrants have been detained this week as government forces occupy and fan out across the city following Trump's deployment of National Guard troops and federalization of the MPD. The president dubiously declared a public safety emergency on Monday, invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. Trump also said that he would ask the Republican-controlled Congress to authorize an extension of his federal takeover beyond the 30 days allowed under Section 740.

Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser—a Democrat who calls the occupying agencies "our federal partners"—has quietly sought to overturn the capital's Sanctuary Values Amendment Act of 2020, which prohibits MPD from releasing detained individuals to ICE or inquiring about their legal status. The law also limits city officials' cooperation with immigration agencies, including by restricting information sharing regarding individuals in MPD custody.

While the DC Council recently blocked Bowser's attempt to slip legislation repealing the sanctuary policy into her proposed 2026 budget, Congress has the power to modify or even overturn Washington laws under the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973. In June, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed Rep. Clay Higgins' (R-La.) District of Columbia Federal Immigration Compliance Act, which would repeal Washington's sanctuary policies and compel compliance with requests from the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE. The Senate is currently considering the bill.

Trump's crackdown has also targeted Washington's unhoused population, with MPD conducting sweeps of encampments around the city.

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"There's definitely a lot of chaos, fear, and confusion," Amber Harding, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, told CNN Thursday.

David Beatty, an unhoused man living in an encampment near the Kennedy Center that Trump threateningly singled out last week, was among the victims of a Thursday sweep.

Beatty told USA Today that Trump "is targeting and persecuting us," adding that "he wants to take our freedom away."

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday he may declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and continue his military occupation of Washington, D.C. indefinitely.

Under the Home Rule Act, the president is allowed to unilaterally take control of law enforcement in the nation's capital for 30 days. After that, Congress must extend its authorization through a joint resolution.

The authorization would need 60 votes to break the Senate filibuster, meaning some Democrats would need to sign on. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said there's "no fucking way" they would, adding that some Republicans would likely vote against it as well.

During a speech at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, Trump said that if Congress won't approve his indefinite deployment of the National Guard, he'll just invoke emergency powers.

"If it's a national emergency, we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly," Trump said.

"I don't want to call a national emergency," Trump said, before adding, "If I have to, I will."

Announcing his federal takeover of the D.C. police, Trump said he would authorize the cops to "do whatever the hell they want" when patrolling the city.

On Wednesday, a day after troops deployed to D.C., federal agents set up a security checkpoint on the busy 14th Street Northwest Corridor, where Newsweek reports that they have been conducting random stops, which have previously been ruled unconstitutional.

One eyewitness described seeing agents "in unmarked cars without badges pulling people out of their cars and taking them away."

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Other similar scenes of what appear to be random and arbitrary stops and arrests have been documented around the city.

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"President Trump fabricated the 'emergency' that's required to exist for a president to federalize D.C. Police," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's nonvoting congressional delegate on X. "He admitted to reporters today that he's willing to fabricate a national emergency in order to try to extend his power."

It would not be the first time Trump called a national emergency in an attempt to suspend the usual checks on his power.

In 2019—despite border crossings being at historic lows—he declared a national emergency to reroute billions of dollars to construct his border wall after Congress refused to approve it. He has also declared a national emergency at the U.S. border.

He has used national emergency declarations even more liberally in his second term, including to send U.S. troops to the Southern border, to expedite oil drilling projects, and to enact extreme tariffs without congressional approval.

According to Joseph Nunn, a legal scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice, Trump is already abusing the language of the Home Rule Act, which only allows D.C. law enforcement to be federalized in "special conditions of an emergency nature."

Though the law does not explicitly define what constitutes a "national emergency," Nunn says, "the word 'emergency' has meaning. An emergency is a sudden crisis, an unexpected change in circumstances." That would be at odds with the facts on the ground in D.C., where crime has fallen dramatically over the past year.

After Trump floated using a national emergency to extend his occupation of D.C., Justin Amash—a former Republican congressman who was ousted in 2021 after breaking with Trump—wrote on X that "emergency powers are the lifeblood of authoritarians."

"Once established in law, they're nearly impossible to revoke because a president can veto any bill curtailing the power," Amash said. "We always live under dozens of active 'national emergencies,' almost none of which are true emergencies."

Trump also said he was working with congressional Republicans on a "crime bill" that will "pertain initially to D.C." but will be expanded to apply to other blue cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Despite Trump's portrayal of these cities as crime-ridden hellscapes, crime is falling in every single one of them.

"What Donald Trump is doing is, in some ways, a dress rehearsal for going after others around the country. And I think we need to stop this—certainly by the end of the 30 days," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "This should never have started, so I definitely want to make sure it doesn't continue."

More than 100 protesters gathered late Wednesday at a checkpoint set up by a combination of local and federal officers on a popular street in Washington, D.C., where U.S. President Donald Trump has taken over the police force and deployed around 800 National Guard members as part of what he hopes will be a long-term occupation of the country's capital—and potentially other major cities.

The officers at the Wednesday night checkpoint reportedly included agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which is also taking part in immigration raids in the city. Some agents were wearing face coverings to conceal their identities.

After law enforcement agents established the checkpoint on 14th Street, protesters gathered and jeered the officers, chanting "get off our streets" and "go home fascists." Some demonstrators yelled at the agents standing at the checkpoint, while others warned oncoming drivers to turn to avoid the police installation.

There was no officially stated purpose for the checkpoint, but it came amid the Trump administration's lawless mass deportation campaign and its broader threats to deploy U.S. troops on the streets of American cities to crush dissent.

At least one person, a Black woman, was arrested at Wednesday's checkpoint. One D.C. resident posted to Reddit that agents were "pulling people out of cars who are 'suspicious' or if they don't like the answers to their questions." The Washington Post reported that a "mix of local and federal authorities pulled over drivers for seat belt violations or broken taillights."

The National Guard troops activated by Trump this week were not seen at the checkpoint, which shut down before midnight.

Wednesday night's protests are expected to be just the start as public anger mounts over Trump's authoritarian actions in the nation's capital—where violent crime fell to a 30-year low last year—and across the country.

Radley Balko, a journalist who has documented the growing militarization of U.S. police, wrote earlier this week that "the motivation for Donald Trump's plan to 'federalize' Washington, D.C., is same as his motivation for sending active-duty troops into Los Angeles, deporting people to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador, his politicization of the Department of Justice, and nearly every other authoritarian overreach of the last six months: He is testing the limits of his power—and, by extension, of our democracy."

"He's feeling out what the Supreme Court, Congress, and the public will let him get away with. And so far, he's been able to do what he pleases," Balko wrote. "We are now past the point of crisis. Trump has long dreamed of presiding over a police state. He has openly admired and been reluctant to criticize foreign leaders who helm one. He has now appointed people who have expressed their willingness to help him achieve one to the very positions with the power to make one happen. And both he and his highest-ranking advisers have both openly spoken about and written out their plans to implement one."

"It's time to believe them," Balko added.

The Trump administration's military occupation of Washington, D.C. is expected to expand, a White House official said Wednesday, with President Donald Trump also saying he will ask Congress to approve a "long-term" extension of federal control over local police in the nation's capital.

The unnamed Trump official told CNN that a "significantly higher" number of National Guard troops are expected on the ground in Washington later Wednesday to support law enforcement patrols in the city.

"The National Guard is not arresting people," the official said, adding that troops are tasked with creating "a safe environment" for the hundreds of federal officers and agents from over a dozen agencies who are fanning out across the city over the strong objection of local officials.

Trump dubiously declared a public safety emergency Monday in order to take control of Washington police under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act. The president said Wednesday that he would ask the Republican-controlled Congress to authorize an extension of his federal takeover of local police beyond the 30 days allowed under Section 740.

"Already they're saying, 'He's a dictator,'" Trump said of his critics during remarks at the Kennedy Center in Washington. "The place is going to hell. We've got to stop it. So instead of saying, 'He's a dictator,' they should say, 'We're going to join him and make Washington safe.'"

According to official statistics, violent crime in Washington is down 26% from a year ago, when it was at its second-lowest level since 1966,

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have both expressed support for Trump's actions. However, any legislation authorizing an extension of federal control over local police would face an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democratic lawmakers can employ procedural rules to block the majority's effort.

Trump also said any congressional authorization could open the door to targeting other cities in his crosshairs, including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland. Official statistics show violent crime trending downward in all of those cities—with some registering historically low levels.

While some critics have called Trump's actions in Washington a distraction from his administration's mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, others say his occupation of the nation's capital is a test case to see what he can get away with in other cities.

Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois, said Monday that the president's D.C. takeover "is another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions."

Some opponents also said Trump's actions are intended to intimidate Democrat-controlled cities, pointing to his June order to deploy thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests against his administration's mass deportation campaign.

— (@)

Testifying Wednesday at a San Francisco trial to determine whether Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878—which generally prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement—by sending troops to Los Angeles, California Deputy Attorney General Meghan Strong argued that the president wanted to "strike fear into the hearts of Californians."

Roosevelt University political science professor and Newsweek contributor David Faris wrote Wednesday that "deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C. is an unconscionable abuse of federal power and another worrisome signpost on our road to autocracy."

"Using the military to bring big, blue cities to heel, exactly as 'alarmists' predicted during the 2024 campaign, isn't about a crisis in D.C.—violent crime is actually at a 30-year low," he added. "President Trump is, once again, testing the limits of his power, hoping to intimidate other cities into submission to his every vengeful whim by making the once unimaginable—an American tyrant ordering a military occupation of our own capital—a terrifying reality."

U.S. President Donald Trump's military occupation of Washington, D.C. has been egged on for months by corporate lobbyists. In some cases, they have posed as small business owners besieged by rising crime rates.

According to a report Tuesday in The Lever:

Last February, the American Investment Council, private equity's $24 million lobbying shop, penned a letter to D.C. city leaders demanding "immediate action" to address an "alarming increase" in crime.

That letter was published as an exclusive by Axios with the headline: "Downtown D.C. Business Leaders Demand Crime Solutions."

But far from a group of beleaguered mom-and-pops, the letter's signatories "included some of the biggest trade groups on K Street," The Lever observed:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which boasts its status as the largest business organization in the world; the National Retail Federation, a powerful retail alliance representing giants like Walmart and Target; and Airlines for America, which represents the major U.S. airlines, among others. These lobbying juggernauts spend tens of millions of dollars every year lobbying federal lawmakers to get their way in Washington."

It was one of many efforts by right-wing groups to agitate for a more fearsome police crackdown in the city and oppose criminal justice reforms.

On multiple occasions, business groups and police unions have helped to thwart efforts by the D.C. city council to rewrite the city's criminal code, which has not been updated in over a century, to eliminate many mandatory minimum sentences and reduce sentences for some nonviolent offenses.

The reforms were vetoed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser in 2023. After the veto was overridden by the city council, Democrats helped Republicans pass a law squashing the reforms, which was signed by then-President Joe Biden.

In 2024, groups like the Chamber of Commerce pushed the "Secure D.C." bill in the city council, which expanded pre-trial detention, weakened restrictions on chokeholds, and limited public access to police disciplinary records.

At the time, business groups lauded these changes as necessary to fight the post-pandemic crime spike D.C. was experiencing.

But crime rates in D.C. have fallen precipitously, to a 30-year low over the course of 2024. As a press release from the U.S. attorney's office released on January 3, 2025 stated: "homicides are down 32%; robberies are down 39%; armed carjackings are down 53%; assaults with a dangerous weapon are down 27% when compared with 2023 levels."

Nevertheless, as Trump sends federal troops into D.C., many in the corporate world are still cheering.

In a statement Monday, the D.C. Chamber of Commerce described itself as a "strong supporter" of the Home Rule Act, which Trump used to enact his federal crackdown.

The Washington Business Journal quoted multiple consultancy executives—including Yaman Coskum, who exclaimed that "It is about time somebody did something to make D.C. great again," and Kirk McLaren who said, "If local leaders won't protect residents and businesses, let's see if the federal government will step in and do what's necessary to create a safe and prosperous city."

Despite crime also being on the decline in every other city he has singled out—Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York, and Chicago—Trump has said his deployment of federal troops "will go further."

Os militares da Guarda Nacional dos Estados Unidos destacados por Donald Trump para Washington DC começaram a chegar às ruas da capital norte-americana, que o presidente considera palco de uma onda de crimes violentos.

Ao todo, serão oito centenas de soldados mobilizados para a cidade, assim como 500 agentes federais. A prefeita da cidade denuncia o "impulso autoritário" do presidente.

Notícias relacionadas:

• Em carta a Trump, governador rebate dados sobre violência no DF.

Sob o lema “tornar DC segura outra vez”, Donald Trump anunciou na segunda-feira (11) a decisão de destacar centenas de membros da Guarda Nacional na capital durante um período de emergência de 30 dias.

“Vou tornar a nossa capital mais segura e mais bonita. Os sem-teto têm de sair imediatamente. Vamos dar acomodação para ficarem, mas longe da capital. Os criminosos não precisam se mudar. Vamos colocá-los todos na cadeia, onde pertencem”, anunciou então o presidente. Trump justificou a decisão com o “crime, selvajaria, sujidade” e com “as mortes impiedosas de pessoas inocentes” que diz existirem em Washington DC.

Ao final desta terça-feira (12) já se observavam na cidade, especialmente em locais centrais e turísticos, veículos blindados da Guarda Nacional. Ao longo dos próximos o restante das tropas deve chegar.

Alegações falsas

A prefeita de Washington DC, a democrata Muriel Bowser, negou que o crime esteja fora de controle e condenou a decisão do presidente.

“Temos de proteger a nossa cidade, proteger a nossa autonomia, proteger o nosso direito interno e superar este tipo [Donald Trump], para garantir que elegemos uma Câmara democrata para que tenhamos uma barreira contra este impulso autoritário”, disse Muriel ao New York Times.

A chefe do executivo local frisou ainda que a Guarda Nacional não tem o poder de prender pessoas.

Segundo dados oficiais da Polícia Metropolitana de Washington DC, a taxa de crimes violentos em Washington DC é a mais baixa dos últimos 30 anos.

Dados do FBI também indicam uma queda de 9% na criminalidade da cidade desde o ano passado. Ainda assim, estudos sugerem que a capital tem uma taxa de homicídios mais elevada do que outras grandes cidades americanas.

Apenas o início

Enquanto nos Estados norte-americanos a Guarda Nacional funciona como uma milícia que responde ao governador, exceto quando é chamada para o serviço federal, em Washington esta força responde diretamente do presidente.

Raramente um presidente recorre diretamente à Guarda Nacional para combater a criminalidade. No entanto, em junho deste ano Donald Trump já tinha mobilizado cerca de 2 mil militares para Los Angeles para responder aos protestos contra detenções de imigrantes ilegais na cidade californiana.

Na terça-feira, a secretária de imprensa da Casa Branca adiantou que, para além da mobilização dos militares em Washington DC, cerca de 850 policiais foram destacados para a cidade nesta madrugada, realizando 23 detenções por homicídio, infrações com armas de fogo, tráfico de droga, evasão fiscal, atos obscenos e perseguições.

“Este é apenas o início. Ao longo do próximo mês, a Administração Trump irá perseguir e prender implacavelmente todos os criminosos violentos do distrito que infringem a lei, prejudicam a segurança pública e põem em perigo os americanos”, assegurou.

When U.S. President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. on Monday and claimed during a press conference that the city was overrun by "crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse," critics were quick to point out that crime had actually been falling in the nation's capital.

Violent crime in D.C. has dropped by 26% since this time in 2024, which was already a 30-year low, according to data from the police department.

During that same surreal press conference, Trump threatened to have federal law enforcement occupy several other U.S. cities—Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York, and Chicago.

"We're not gonna lose our cities over this," Trump said Monday morning. "And this will go further," he said, referring to his federal crackdown.

Trump said the cities he plans to target are "bad, very bad," concerning crime. But he didn't cite any specifics. Likely because there aren't any.

— (@)

After temporary upticks in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, crime rates continued the precipitous decline that has been going on for decades. According to nationwide data released on August 5 by the FBI, both violent and property crime rates continued to drop throughout 2024, reaching their lowest points since at least 1969.

Like with D.C., in every single one of the cities he named, crime is actually falling, in some cases reaching historic lows.

Contrary to Trump's characterization that "lawlessness...has been allowed to fester," the Los Angeles Police Department reported last month that homicides had fallen by 20% in the first half of the year and that the city was on pace for the lowest number of killings in more than 60 years.

Violent crime is on the decline more generally across the city, with fewer aggravated assaults, gun assaults, sexual assaults, domestic violence incidents, robberies, and carjackings this year than in the first half of 2019, when Trump was still in his first term.

Baltimore, which Trump has derided as "filthy" and "so far gone" on crime, is likewise the safest it's been in 50 years, with a historically low homicide rate that has declined by 28% over the past year alone. Violent crime has more generally decreased by 17% from the previous year, while property crime has decreased by 13%.

In April 2025, the city saw just five homicides, the fewest in any month since 1970. In Popular Information, journalist Judd Legum noted how this dramatic shift has followed a change in approaches to policing in the city under Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott:

Scott, who was first elected in 2020, has brought the city's homicide rate down by treating violent crime as a public health crisis. That means treating violent crime as a symptom of multiple factors, including racism, poverty, and past violence. Addressing violent crime as a public health issue involves going beyond arresting people after violence is committed and taking proactive and preventative measures...

Under Scott, Baltimore has fought violent crime not only through policing but through a network of programs that provide support for housing, career development, and education.

Chicago has likewise seen a historic drop in homicides, with fewer this year than in any previous year in the past decade and a 30% decline in both shootings and homicides from the previous year. Violent crime on the whole, meanwhile, is 25% lower than it was in 2019—a larger drop than many other cities have seen.

Midyear data from Oakland's police department shows that overall crime is down 28% from the previous year, with the most significant drops in robbery, burglary, and theft crimes. Homicides, meanwhile, dropped 24%. This decrease continues the trend from 2024, when homicides also dropped by double digits.

Trump's ally in Gracie Mansion notwithstanding, crime is also down considerably in New York City. From January to May 2025, the city experienced the lowest number of murders in recorded history, marking an astonishing 46% decrease from the previous year.

And while—unlike most cities—overall crime is still higher in the Big Apple than it was before the pandemic, that comes at the tail end of a total collapse in its violent crime rate over the past four decades. In 1990, there were 30 homicides per 100,000 people, compared with just 3.2 homicides it is on track for in 2025.

Despite these trends, many Americans are persuaded by persistent claims that crime is rising, even when they are not.

In October 2024, even as crime rates were cratering around the country, 64% of Americans still told a Gallup poll that they believed it was on the rise. And even when Americans believe crime is down where they live, they tend to believe it is increasing nationally.

Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights attorney and author of the book Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, wrote on X Monday that the press's incessant decontextualized coverage of violent crime has helped to lend credibility to Trump's narrative that it is rising.

"How is this possible? What lays the groundwork for such ludicrous claims?" he asked. "The news media has been fearmongering for years."

— (@)

According to a survey by Pew Research in 2024, local news covers crime more than any other topic, with the exception of the weather. And although violent crime occurs at about one-fifth the rate of property crime, Americans are shown news stories about it at about the same rate.

Karakatanis says, journalists at major news outlets like The Washington Post have uncritically spread the claim that crime is "out of control" despite its precipitous decline—a narrative that has been seized upon by Republicans hoping to enact authoritarian measures.

The Associated Press has been criticized for its coverage on Monday of Trump's deployment of the National Guard, which Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman said on Bluesky "manages to treat the objective fact of declining crime in D.C. like it's a difference of opinion" between Trump and Democratic Mayor Bowser.

"No publication, not the AP, not The New York Post, needs to accept Trump's claim that crime in D.C. suddenly constitutes an emergency as plausible and ignore the actual reasons for this authoritarian move," he added.

"If we get to walk back from the brink," Karakatsanis said, "there must be a rigorous reckoning among people of good will about how mainstream institutions tolerated, accepted, peddled, and even celebrated the lies and mythologies of the far-right."

Trump apresentou dados comparando taxa de homicídios em diferentes capitais

O presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, citou Brasília como exemplo de uma capital violenta em um discurso na segunda-feira (11/8), enquanto anunciava estado de emergência na segurança pública de Washington DC.

O argumento usado pelo presidente foi o de que a capital dos EUA teria uma taxa de homicídios maior do que a de outras capitais citadas.

Além da capital brasileira, Trump também mencionou Bagdá, Cidade do Panamá, San José, Bogotá, Cidade do México e Lima. E acrescentou: “(Washington tem) o dobro e o triplo (de taxas de homicídio) de todas elas. Você quer viver em lugares assim? Eu acho que não.”

O secretário de segurança pública do DF, Sandro Avelar, respondeu à BBC News Brasil:

“O que o presidente Trump disse pode ser uma surpresa para muitos, mas é apenas a realidade dos números, baseada no índice mundialmente aceito de casos de homicídios a cada 100 mil habitantes. Em 2024, tivemos o menor número de homicídios de toda a série histórica do DF, medida desde 1977. Foram 6,9 casos para cada 100 mil habitantes, número que nos aproxima dos países europeus.”

Os números mostram que Washington DC, de fato, possui taxa maior de homicídios do que o Distrito Federal.

Em Washington DC, houve 274 homicídios em 2024, segundo o relatório District Crime Data at a Glance, da Polícia Metropolitana. Isso equivale a 39 homicídios a cada 100 mil habitantes.

O Anuário Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, com dados de 2024, mostra 266 mortes violentas intencionais no DF, uma média de 8,9 por 100 mil habitantes. O dado de 266 mortes é a soma de casos de homicídio doloso, latrocínio, lesão corporal seguida de morte e mortes decorrentes de intervenções policiais em serviço e fora.

Já o Atlas da Violência aponta que houve 347 homicídios em 2023 no DF, ou 11 homicídios a cada 100 mil habitantes. A publicação é produzida pelo Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública e pelo Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada.

Em entrevista ao Estadão, o governador do Distrito Federal Ibaneis Rocha (MDB) disse que vai enviar à Embaixada dos Estados Unidos no Brasil um relatório com esclarecimentos sobre os dados.

Ele disse que faria “uma resposta bem educada” e que “os números são muito bons”.

Disse, ainda, que fez questão de incluir no texto que é de centro e “não concorda com a posição do governo central”, possivelmente em referência à briga de Lula e Trump.

Trump declarou emergência

Manifestantes se reuniram em frente à Casa Branca contra as medidas anunciadas por Trump | Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Ao declarar estado de emergência de segurança pública na capital do país, Trump colocou a polícia de Washington sob controle federal — passando a ser comandada pela procuradora-geral dos EUA, Pam Bondi — e policiais e agentes do FBI foram enviados às ruas. A Guarda Nacional também foi convocada, com mobilização de 800 agentes.

Chamando a ação de “dia da libertação” da capital, Trump afirmou, em entrevista coletiva, que é hora de “ações drásticas”, para expulsar moradores de rua e prender “jovens criminosos”.

Em uma série de postagens na rede Truth Social, o presidente americano afirmou que planeja tornar a cidade “mais segura e mais bonita do que nunca”.

Ele disse que Washington DC foi “tomada por gangues violentas e criminosos sanguinários”, bem como por “maníacos drogados e moradores de rua”.

Em reação às medidas, um protesto se formou em frente à Casa Branca, atraindo dezenas de pessoas que gritam coisas como “tirem as mãos de Washington DC” e “protejam o governo autônomo”, segurando cartazes com os dizeres “Libertem Washington DC”.

Publicado originalmente pela BBC News em 12/08/2025

Por Luiz Fernando Toledo – BBC News Brasil em Londres

O post ‘Você quer viver em lugares assim?’: o que Trump disse sobre Brasília ao decretar emergência em Washington apareceu primeiro em O Cafezinho.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday moved to deploy the National Guard on the streets of Washington, D.C., while also officially taking over the city's police department.

What's more, Trump suggested that this could be a model for other American cities.

As reported by NBC News, Trump said during his announcement on plans to deploy the National Guard in the nation's capital that "other cities are hopefully watching this" and that he hoped it would make them "self-clean up, and maybe they'll self-do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem."

Trump then named Baltimore, Oakland, New York, and Chicago as potential future targets for National Guard deployments and other measures.

Shortly after Trump made his announcement, Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb indicated that he was not taking the president's attempt to take over his city's police force lying down.

"The administration's actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful," he declared in a post on X. "There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in D.C. reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year. We are considering all of our options and will do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of District residents."

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) was also quick to condemn the president's takeover of D.C. law enforcement as an unnecessary power grab.

"The president's attempt to federalize the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard on the streets of our nation's capital is an abuse of power," she said. "It's an egotistical, pathetic attempt to stoke fear and distract from his failures: America is less affordable, healthy, and safe under this administration."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who last year served as the Democratic Party's vice-presidential nominee, chided critics who had accused him in the past of exaggerating the authoritarian threat of a second Trump term.

"The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you you're overreacting," he wrote on X.

The NAACP, meanwhile, compared Trump's enthusiasm for deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. to purportedly battle crime with the lackadaisical attitude he took toward deploying the National Guard when his supporters violently stormed the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

"As a reminder: The same president who proclaims he wants to take back our capital during a historic 30-year low crime rate also couldn't find the National Guard on Jan. 6," the organization wrote.

Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman issued a joint statement slamming Trump's actions and outright labeling him a "despot."

"As autocrats commonly do, Trump is seeking control over the national capital in order to intimidate and squelch dissent," they said. "Like despots around the world and throughout history, Trump is also relying on the pretextual deployment of military force to intimidate and project power, to suppress protest and undercut democracy."

As reported by Politico, Trump's seizure of the D.C. police is on borrowed time from a legal perspective. While the Home Rule Act gives Trump the power to take control of the D.C. police force for emergencies, this power only lasts for 30 days, after which he must seek authorization from Congress to maintain control.

U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to send up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C. this week in a move that critics are warning is another step toward authoritarian rule.

In a post on his Truth Social page on Monday morning, Trump framed the decision to deploy the National Guard as necessary to combat crime in the nation's capital.

"Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today!" Trump claimed. "Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER!"

However, the president's claim that the National Guard is needed to protect Washington, D.C. residents from purportedly unprecedented criminal violence does not hold water given that the city has seen a dramatic fall in crime recently. As noted by CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane, violent crime in Washington, D.C. has fallen by 26% over the last year, highlighted by total homicides declining by 12% year-over-year.

In analyzing the news, some legal analysts were quick to label Trump's latest move a power grab that was wholly unjustified by the facts on the ground.

Joyce Vance, the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, argued on her Substack page that Trump's decision to plow ahead with deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. shows he "is going full bore to push the power of the presidency, even if it means ignoring actual statistics on crime that contradict his stated justification for acting in the nation's capital."

Vance added that Trump's actions in this instance also need to be understood as part of a broad sweep by the president to seize more power for the executive branch.

"In case you're wondering, just six months into his second term, Trump holds a commanding lead in the number of executive orders issued," she wrote. "These statistics from The American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara show the totals for each president in light blue, so, in the first six months of his second term, Trump has signed 186 orders, compared to a four-year total of 162 for Joe Biden."

Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck explained on his own Substack page that Trump does have some significant powers when it comes to deploying the D.C. National Guard in the nation's capital, although he said that the law clearly prevents him from "federalizing" the city as he has threatened to do in the past.

"The president does have two important authorities when it comes to 'local' law enforcement in the District of Columbia: He can use the (small) D.C. National Guard in circumstances in which he probably couldn't use any other military personnel; and he can require the use of [the Metropolitan Police Department] 'for federal purposes' for up to 30 days," he wrote. "That's not nothing, but it also isn't anything close to some kind of federal takeover of the nation's capital."

To actually do a federal takeover of Washington, D.C., Vladeck continued, the president would need to get an act passed through Congress that would almost certainly be filibustered in the U.S. Senate.

Legal experts weren't the only ones alarmed by the planned Trump National Guard deployment.

Karen Attiah, a columnist for The Washington Post, warned her Bluesky followers against writing off the deployment as an effort by the president to distract from his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

"Threats of the militarization of cities—including D.C., which has been fighting for self determination for generations—isn't a 'distraction,'" she said. "It's a massive, giant, red trial balloon for what an American president can do [in] YOUR city... I need people to wake up."

Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois, similarly warned that Trump's National Guard deployment could be a blueprint for the rest of America.

"Trump's move to mobilize the National Guard against Americans in D.C. is another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions," she wrote on Bluesky. "But at some point signs of authoritarianism stop being signs and become symptoms of an autocratic regime. We're far past that point now."

With backing from the restaurant lobby, the Washington, D.C. city council voted Monday to gut plans to raise wages for tipped workers, which had already been approved by the public.

It's the second time the council has overturned a wage increase for tipped workers that the public voted for, having already done so once in 2018.

Under federal law, tipped workers are allowed to be paid a much lower minimum wage—just $2.13 per hour compared with $7.25 for nontipped workers. Tipped workers are, consequentially, more likely to live in poverty.

This is the case in Washington, D.C., where, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Economic Policy Institute, 7.7% of tipped workers live in poverty compared to 2.6% of nontipped workers.

In 2022, D.C. voters overwhelmingly voted to address this problem, supporting Initiative 82, which would have gradually raised the minimum wage for tipped workers—just over $5.35 an hour at the time—to match what other workers receive by 2027.

In 2022, D.C.'s standard minimum wage—which increases each year pegged to inflation—was $16.10. As of 2025, it has increased to $17.95.

As the initiative to raise the tipped minimum wage began, restaurant industry lobbying groups like the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) fought tooth-and-nail to roll it back.

In Jacobin, Raeghn Draper wrote that this group, and others like it around the country, "claim to speak on behalf of restaurant workers, but they are not worker organizations."

Instead, Draper wrote, "They are extensions of the National Restaurant Association (NRA), an industry group historically aligned with large corporate chains like McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Olive Garden—none exactly known for their commitment to workers' rights or well-being."

These groups waged an aggressive disinformation campaign, claiming that by phasing out the subminimum wage, restaurants, crushed by their increasing operating costs, would be forced to close en masse.

The RAMW even touted a survey of its own member restaurants purporting to show that 44% of full-service casual restaurants would have no choice but to close their doors by the end of 2025 due to the policy.

As Draper points out, citing data from an independent investigation by D.C.'s Office of the Budget Director, "the number of D.C. restaurant closures in 2024 did rise slightly compared to the previous year, but restaurant openings also increased, outpacing closures by a margin of two to one."

A study by the EPI likewise found that—despite industry claims that the higher wage requirements were forcing restaurants to lay off their employees—D.C. was seeing more employment growth than other towns in the region without requirements to raise wages.

But media outlets uncritically reported the restaurant industry's narrative about mass closures, and their attempts to "manufacture a crisis," as Draper says, paid off.

While making public appearances with restaurant industry lobbyists, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser signed legislation halting the wage increases in June—freezing the tipped minimum wage at $10 an hour. She pushed for a full repeal, which would have knocked the tipped wage back down to $8 an hour. But the city council voted it down.

On Monday, despite fierce protests from workers and unions, the city council voted 7-5 to freeze the tipped wage at $10 until July 2026, when it will increase by a measly five cents. They also voted to dramatically slow the tipped wage increases to just 5% each year until 2034, when it will be capped at 75% of the standard minimum wage.

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Members of the council, as well as many media outlets, including Axios and The Washington Post, described the decision as a "compromise" between employers and workers. RAMW, which lamented that it was "not a full repeal," has portrayed it that way, though it nevertheless described it as a "win for the industry."

Fair wage activists, however, described it not as a compromise, but an assault on a hard-won democratic victory.

"In what world is this a compromise?" asked One Fair Wage, one of the groups that campaigned for the initiative. "Call it what it is: a pay cut and a betrayal of the working people."

"D.C. Council just voted to overturn the will of the people and freeze wages for tipped workers," said the Fair Budget Coalition in a post on X following the vote. "As rents and other costs rise, it is a CHOICE to maintain a subminimum wage for struggling D.C. residents."

According to EPI, a person living in Washington, D.C. needs to earn just under $31 an hour to afford the cost of living. The average wage paid to tipped workers like bartenders, waiters, and waitresses falls several dollars short of this.

"The voters told us what they wanted when they voted overwhelmingly for I-82—twice—and this is not it," said Brianne Nadeau, one of the council members who voted against reversing the wage hikes. "Restaurant workers and the organizations that represent them have been fighting this battle for wage protections for years, and they shouldn't have to keep fighting it. And this council should not keep on telling the voters they don't know what's best for themselves."

"The council chose corporate lobbyists over tipped workers," said One Fair Wage. To the council members who voted for it, they said: "We see you. We won't forget."