Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday scrapped local directives that severely limited cooperation between police officers in Washington, D.C., and federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration agencies.
The move amounts to a sweeping reversal of “sanctuary” policies in the nation’s capital, allowing the Metropolitan Police Department, for the time being, to fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement as President Trump asserts more control over the District of Columbia, citing concerns about crime and disorder. City officials quickly pushed back on the legality of Bondi’s order, saying they were not bound by it.
Mr. Trump has cited concerns about criminality and homelessness to launch a high-profile anti-crime crackdown in Washington, deploying National Guard troops and hundreds of agents from federal agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection, ICE and the FBI to patrol parts of the city.
Underpinning Mr. Trump’s crackdown is an executive order earlier this week that effectively brought the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control by invoking emergency powers that last for 30 days.
Bondi, who was assigned to oversee federal requests for the police department, wrote in a directive on Thursday that she was making Terry Cole, the current head of the DEA, the emergency police chief in Washington. She also cited Mr. Trump’s emergency declaration to reverse several local police policies.
“D.C. will not remain a sanctuary city, actively shielding criminal aliens,” Bondi said on Fox News Thursday.
Bondi rescinded guidance issued by Washington police chief Pamela Smith earlier Thursday that allowed police officers to transport ICE agents and their detainees and to share immigration information during traffic stops, but that still barred most local involvement in federal immigration enforcement.
She also scrapped guidance that prohibited D.C. police officers from searching databases for the purposes of determining someone’s immigration status, even when there’s no underlying criminal warrant.
Bondi eliminated rules that barred D.C. police from arresting individuals based on administrative immigration warrants signed by ICE officials — not judges — and from assisting federal agents during such arrests. The rescinded policy required officers to have a criminal nexus before carrying out an arrest, prohibiting arrests solely based on suspected civil immigration law violations.
Bondi’s order rescinded a local policy that previously blocked D.C. police from transferring noncitizen detainees to ICE, based on so-called “detainer” requests issued by the federal agency, unless there was a criminal warrant signed by a judge.
Late Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser posted a letter authored by District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who argued Bondi’s directives were not authorized by federal law.
“It is my opinion that the Bondi Order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it,” Schwalb said in the letter, which was addressed to Smith, the Washington, D.C. police chief.
Schwalb said police officers in the capital “must” continue to follow Smith’s orders “and not the order of any official not appointed by the Mayor.”
As part of its far-reaching crackdown on illegal immigration, the Trump administration has sought to penalize so-called “sanctuary” cities and states that refuse to fully cooperate with federal immigration officers, threatening them with lawsuits and federal funding cuts.
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