President vows to ‘federalize’ capital city after mayor says police will not work with Ice in immigration crackdown
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Donald Trump has threatened to call a national emergency and federalize Washington DC after the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, said its police would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), whose agents have been taking illegal suspects into custody and have been accused of racially profiling people in doing so.
The US president took charge of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) on 11 August for 30 days, activating the National Guard and deploying federal officers in what he framed as a crackdown on crime and homelessness but what was widely seen as another example of federal overreach.
It is true that Washington DC has struggled with the scourge of gun violence, but its violent crime rate is at a 30-year low, much lower than that of cities in many red states.
