Mayor Muriel Bowser says Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement has lowered crime in D.C.

Washington – The mayor of DC, Muriel Bowser, credited on Wednesday the sharp increase in the federal police for President Donald Trump to reduce crime in the national capital, but clearly indicated that the presence of immigration agents and national guard troops does not work. ”

Bowser transmitted his ambivalent vision of the Federalization of DC by the Trump administration during an update of the situation since the president announced the efforts on August 7 to combat crime in the city. On the one hand, she said that changes have led to fewer crimes, but also expressed a deep concern about residents “living in fear”.

“We greatly appreciate the wave of officers who improve what MPD was able to do in this city,” the mayor, a democrat, to journalists from the expansion of the Federal police and his partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service.

The carjackings, she said, were the “most disturbing” crime that tormented DC in 2023 and they have decreased in recent years. Bowser said that within 20 days of the federal control, there had been an 87% drop in carjacks compared to the same period last year. The data mentioned also showed a 15% drop in crime in the district in the district during the same period last year.

“We know that when carjacking descends, when the use of firearms descends, when the homicide or the flight decreases, the districts feel more safe and are safer, so this push was important for us,” said Bowser, who added that she was personally engaged with the general prosecutor Pam Bondi and the chief of staff of the White House Susie Wiles.

Bowser said she spoke to Trump on Wednesday afternoon, although she refused to provide details on their discussion and said the meeting was “courtesy”.

“I was reminded our first meeting after his re-election, where we discussed the shared priorities for the district,” she said. “There, I was reminded that the president’s interest in cities is prior to his mandate and that his knowledge of DC had increased considerably since the first time he was in the White House.”

Asked what assurance she had received that the president would not try to go beyond the 30-day period of the thrust, Bowser said: “It was not something that I discussed with the president.”

Bowser reported that overvoltage may not be necessary after the defined period. “What we want is the local control of our public security ecosystem,” she said when they asked her what she wanted after the month. “This includes the deployment of officers, and we want the federal officers to work in coordination with us – DEA, ATF, FBI – who, as the chef has just mentioned, works with us on major crime problems all the time.”

She added: “After 30 days, I think we are going to have officers and we want officers. We want to improve the presence of our officer.”

Bowser said MPD’s ability to combat DC crime would be considerably improved if the ministry could hire at least 500 police officers in the coming years. The police chief Pamela Smith also suggested during the press conference that the city benefited from the federal working group formed to write crime and indicated that it could be a long -term solution “when we see overvoltages and crime peaks”.

The mayor said that since the increase in federal law enforcement agents, there have been more stops that have led to the seizure of illegal firearms and there has been more “responsibility in the system” which “reduces illegal behavior”.

“We know that we have had fewer crimes of firearms, less homicides, and we have experienced an extreme reduction in carjacks,” she said.

Bowser, however, has strongly reprimanded the deployment by the Trump administration of American immigration and customs and customs and troops of the national guard in the city. “What we know does not work is a break in confidence between the police and the community, in particular with the new federal partners in our community. We know that having masked ice agents in the community has not worked, and the national guards of other states were not an effective use of these resources,” she said.

Although the mayor refused to say if she raised his concerns about the arrests of ice to Trump or Bondi, she said that people should be “assured that things that concern us very, we are working on a resolution”.

Many Immigrants have been afraid since the federal accumulation of application of the law, especially since agents masked in unmarked cars were seen arrested by alleged undocumented immigrants.

Bowser said the local government had no information on anyone held by ICE to DC recently. “I am sure, because we think that everything we do and everything we are going to ask the federal partners to do is focus on violent crimes.”

“I am devastated by people living in fear,” she said. “I think you know very clearly what I feel about our nation which needs a complete reform of immigration, about the congress establishing a path to citizenship for people who work hard in this country for a better life and who are not criminals, who respect the laws.”

As much commented on Bowser’s remarks, the spokesperson for the White House, Taylor Rogers, said that “crime is not a partisan problem”.

“The Americans expect elected officials to have priority to their security on policy. The bold action of President Trump and the partnership with local police quickly minimized violent crimes and withdrawn more than a thousand criminals from the streets of the capital of our country,” she said. “This includes illegal extraterrestrials that have previous arrests for odious crimes such as assaults or rape and are dangerous gangs like MS-13 and Tren of Aragua. Other Democratic leaders who criticize President Trump to clean DC should take notes on the enormous success that Washington, DC, has already known under the leaders of President Trump.”

An official of the White House said on Wednesday that Tuesday evening, 40 undocumented immigrants had been arrested who had “multiple convictions for assault, a previous criminal arrest for DUI, attacking an agent for the application of the law, previous criminal arrests for dangerous substances controlled with the intention of distributing, previous immigration meetings, and a person considered as a special interest.”

Since the start of the federal wave, the official said that 1,170 people had been arrested.