Federal agents, including members of ICE, patrol the halls of immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on July 24, 2025, in New York.

As Washington, D.C., police are increasingly cooperating with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement, Black immigration groups fear it will put Black and brown people in other sanctuary jurisdictions at risk of being arrested and possibly deported. 

Amid a federal takeover late last week, the Trump administration reversed course and agreed to leave the police chief in control of the Metropolitan Police Department after city government officials filed a lawsuit. Still, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the district’s police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law, and the following day included immigration enforcement to their tasks. Six Republican-led states agreed to deploy their crop of federal troops to assist in Washington.

“I don’t think it’s even about crime. It’s about control and sliding towards authoritarianism,” Ronald Claude, director of policy and advocacy with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, told Capital B. “It’s the same approach they did since 2016 when it comes to the border, saying there’s chaos at the border, the border is running amok. … Instead of actually looking at the data” to “further their own political objectives.”

The only increase in numbers is the amount of individuals ICE has detained, according to Claude and a July report published by the Prison Policy Initiative.

Last week’s orders from Bondi marked a shift from the police department’s previous stance as a sanctuary jurisdiction, in which law enforcement officers did not notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when an undocumented person was charged with a crime or released from custody — actions that could have led to potential deportation.

“It’s all about deportation,” Claude said. “Instead of who feels unsafe walking outside their house. Instead of how much funding has gone into activities for teens after 5. Instead of how much has gone into homelessness, rent is going up every single year — we missed those issues.” 

Trump’s federal takeover announcement also came within the same week that Bondi released a list of 35 “sanctuary jurisdictions,” which are cities, counties, and states accused of enacting policies that hinder federal immigration efforts. Bondi threatened legal action and to withhold victim compensation funds against these areas, signaling a replicated push that primarily targets Black and brown immigrant communities, many of whom are undocumented or presumed to be.

Those threats “clearly violate the 10th Amendment,” according to an analysis written by Spencer Reynolds, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. The amendment, he said, “provides that powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states as independent sovereigns in our system of federalism.”

If this administration’s efforts in Washington are about “who provides safety and what is safety — and if you ask our communities like Black immigrants and Black folks — I guarantee you it is not seeing tanks coming through your streets or police that makes us feel safe,” Claude said.

So what does Bondi’s threat mean now for other mayors and Black families living in the district and beyond? Read on to find out. 

What is a sanctuary jurisdiction, and has this kind of crackdown happened before? 

Demonstrators rally in front of Homestead City Hall against President-elect Donald Trump in November 2016 while asking that the city be used as a sanctuary city. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This wasn’t the first time Trump and his attorney general have escalated its crackdown on what they deemed then as “sanctuary cities” or jurisdictions. A sanctuary jurisdiction is a city, county, or state that has implemented policies that limit cooperation with federal law enforcement, particularly ICE.

In 2020, following nationwide protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, officials used a legal loophole to deploy the National Guard to the district and sent unidentified federal agents to Portland, Oregon, leading to thousands of arrests, most of which were later dismissed.

Officials in places like New Jersey and Oregon labeled the Trump administration’s threats at the time as political theater — “bullying” and “election-year stunts.” In March 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Trump-era cases against sanctuary cities after former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, withdrew the government’s support.

This time around, it took less than a week in August for Washington and other sanctuary locations to become direct targets for Trump. Two days after the Aug. 3 carjacking of a former Department of Government Ethics official, Bondi revealed the list, and by Aug. 8 Trump signed an executive order that temporarily deployed federal troops into the district. 

“We have seen time and again that when law enforcement is militarized, it is our Black, Brown, and immigrant neighbors who suffer the most,” Guerline M. Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in an Aug. 13 press release in response to Trump deploying the National Guard into Washington.

On Aug. 5, Bondi named 12 states and Washington, D.C., four counties — Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, and San Diego and San Francisco counties in California — and 18 cities in 10 states within communities that have a large population of documented and undocumented Black residents. 

Additionally, Washington, D.C., was listed as a “state.” And the five boroughs — each a separate county — that make up New York City were not individually listed in the Justice Department’s county-level breakdown of sanctuary jurisdictions.

Claude said that other locations on the list must “keep fighting” as Boston Mayor Michelle Wu did, rejecting Bondi’s one-week deadline to respond to her letter of intent.

“This is not an option,” Claude said. “We’re imploring folks to go to your city council meetings, push your city council, push your town commissioner, if that’s what you have, your governor, your mayor, because they have a voice. They can do something. They can stand up.” 

What is a 48-hour immigration hold?

A 48-hour immigration hold, also known as an ICE detainer, is a request from ICE to local law enforcement agencies, asking them to hold someone for up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released from jail, so ICE can take custody for possible immigration enforcement. 

This typically happens when a person under arrest, regardless of their socioeconomic status, is flagged as potentially removable due to their immigration status. The hold gives ICE time to arrive and make a federal immigration arrest after local criminal proceedings are finished. 

Arrests now increasingly occur in jails and near courthouses. Two recent examples: Rony Dieujuste in Palm Beach, Florida, and Marlon Parris in Phoenix. Neither of those locations appears on the DOJ’s sanctuary jurisdiction list.

With three years remaining in the Trump administration, recent executive orders appear to disproportionately impact undocumented individuals, unhoused people, and residents of low-income communities — particularly those who are Black or Latino — compared with their white counterparts in similar circumstances, according to advocates and civil rights groups.

“President Trump speaks of poor and homeless people as if they are debris to be swept away, not human beings with dignity and dreams,” Jozef wrote in the Aug.13 press release. “Moving people without a real plan is not leadership — it’s cruelty dressed up as policy. This is the kind of dehumanization that turns poverty into a crime and erases the humanity of our most vulnerable neighbors.”

Are all immigration arrests happening in designated sanctuary jurisdictions?

While sanctuary jurisdictions have historically attempted to shield undocumented residents from deportation — often by refusing to detain people for ICE — federal and state law enforcement agencies are adapting. 

“Many cities and states have tried to offer sanctuary for immigrants by refusing to rent jail space to ICE … but it is not enough,” Jacob Kang-Brown, author of Hiding in Plain Sight, a report published by the Prison Policy Initiative, said in a press release. The report reveals the role of locally run jails in Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Bondi said in the Aug. 5 press release that several lawsuits had already been filed against local governments. These lawsuits demand that judges order jurisdictions to abandon their sanctuary policies and comply with Trump’s April executive order, which, in part, seeks to block undocumented people from receiving federal benefits.

In Louisville, Kentucky, under Democratic leadership, Mayor Craig Greenberg recently announced compliance with the DOJ’s demands, citing fear of losing millions in federal funds if kept on the list. In an interview with Spectrum News, Greenberg said the city would reinstate 48-hour courthouse holds. 

Black people in the U.S. are arrested at 2.5 times the rate of their white counterparts, despite similar criminal activity rates, according to a report by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. Once entangled in the criminal legal system, Black migrants are often flagged by ICE, creating a pathway from routine traffic stops to deportation proceedings. Among the most frequent forms of police contact leading to deportation are simple traffic violations.

Do sanctuary cities affect crime rates?

A banner welcoming immigrants is placed over the main entrance to the Denver City and County Building in 2018. (David Zalubowski/Associated Press)

The simple answer is no. 

Research released by the University of New Mexico this February shows that sanctuary cities do not have higher crime rates than non-sanctuary jurisdictions. But even in sanctuary cities, immigration enforcement remains a serious concern. Bondi said she sent letters of intent to the mayors of 35 such jurisdictions, giving them one week to respond and affirm that they will not obstruct federal deportation efforts.

As deportation efforts increase, those accused of overstaying their green cards, visas, or other forms of entry — regardless of their immigration status — must remain vigilant, advocates have said.

“It doesn’t make me feel safe when I look across the street at my neighbor, and you’re knocking on their door randomly to see their papers and to deport them or separate families,” Claude said. “That doesn’t keep anyone safe, and it causes more harm.” 

“We reject it,” Jozef said in the Aug. 13 press release. “Our neighborhoods need increase[d] congressional funding, housing, healthcare, and humane immigration policies — not troops in the streets.”

These warnings are imperative, especially since simple traffic violations are among the most common reasons police come into contact with immigrants who later face deportation, according to a report by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. 

Dieujuste, the Haitian immigrant who was living in Florida, was arrested following a traffic stop for allegedly driving under the influence. 

“The Trump administration is leveraging jails at a new scale, using local contracts with the U.S. Marshals Service and existing policing practices in order to expand detention,” Kang-Brown said in the report’s press release.

The Prison Policy Initiative’s report revealed that ICE’s reported headcount of 57,200 detainees as of June is incomplete. The report found an additional 26,200 people held in jails and prisons for immigration-related reasons who were not included in ICE’s public records.

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