D.C. chief to stay, but with immigration enforcement order
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday reversed course and agreed to leave the Washington, D.C., police chief in control of the department, while Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a new memo, directed the District’s police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement “notwithstanding” city law.
Bondi’s new order Friday came after officials in the nation’s capital sued to block President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Washington police. On Thursday night. his administration escalated its intervention into the city’s law enforcement by naming a federal official as the new emergency head of the department.
The attorney general’s new order represents a partial retreat for the Trump administration in the face of intense skepticism from a judge over the legality of Bondi’s earlier directive that sought to put the police force under the full control of the federal government. But Bondi also signaled the administration would continue to pressure D.C. leaders to help federal authorities aggressively pursue immigrants in the country illegally, despite city laws on the books that limit cooperation between police and immigration authorities.
The District of Columbia’s police chief said Trump’s earlier move to sideline her would threaten law and order by upending the command structure. “In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive,” Chief Pamela Smith said in a court filing.
The legal battle was the latest evidence of the escalating tensions in a mostly Democratic city that now has its police department under the control of the Republican president’s administration that exists in its midst. Trump’s takeover is historic, yet it had played out with a slow ramp-up in federal law enforcement officials and National Guard troops to start the week.
As the weekend approached, though, signs across the city — from the streets to the legal system — suggested a deepening crisis over who controls the city’s immigration and policing policies, the district’s right to govern itself and daily life for the millions of people who live and work in the metro area.
After a court hearing on the district’s request for a temporary restraining order against sidelining Smith, the Trump administration and city officials reached the temporary.
The two sides sparred in court for hours Friday before U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing the lawsuit. She indicated the law likely doesn’t grant the Trump administration power to fully take over city police, but it probably does give the president more power than the city might like.
“The way I read the statute, the president can ask, the mayor must provide, but the president can’t control,” said Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.
The judge asked the two sides to hammer out a compromise, and promised to issue a court order temporarily blocking the administration from naming a new chief if they couldn’t agree.
