DC will also institute a Juvenile Curfew Zone in the Navy Yard area
Washington, D.C., police officers are now authorized to alert federal immigration authorities about individuals not in custody and help ICE transport detained suspects, Chief of Police Pamela Smith said Thursday in an executive order, backpedaling on the city’s longstanding sanctuary city policies.
Members of the Metropolitan Police Department may assist with “sharing information about persons not in MPD custody (e.g., during traffic stops)” and “providing transportation for federal immigration agency employees and detained subjects,” according to Smith’s order obtained by NBC 4 Washington.
BREAKING: DC Police Chief issues new executive orders allowing police to notify ICE about subjects not in custody, including during traffic stops and to help ICE in the transportation of detained suspects. @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/wXfYlfp6Yv
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) August 14, 2025
The order marks a partial reversal of D.C.’s sanctuary laws, which bar police from assisting ICE in immigration enforcement. While it allows police to cooperate with ICE when dealing with individuals not in custody, it does not change the rules for people who have been arrested. ICE agents still cannot question them, and D.C. police cannot share their release dates. The order also maintains the prohibition on officers’ using any database solely to check immigration status or arresting “individuals based solely on federal immigration warrants or detainers.”
President Donald Trump this week ramped up his crackdown on crime in by placing the D.C. police department under federal control and mobilizing the National Guard in the nation’s capital. The president said that crime is “out of control” in D.C. and vowed to “put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border.”
Trump has repeatedly condemned the sanctuary policies of D.C. and other Democratic-led cities amid his nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration. The Trump administration has arrested and deported hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, most of whom have criminal backgrounds. One month after Trump’s second inauguration, migrant encounters at the border dropped to the lowest level since 2017.
D.C. police on Thursday also announced a Juvenile Curfew Zone in the Navy Yard area beginning Friday at 8 p.m., days after a mob of young assailants brutally beat up a former Department of Government Efficiency employee during an attempted hijacking. The attack has prompted Trump to threaten to put the entire District of Columbia under federal control, as the Constitution permits.
While crime in the district has fallen since last year, when the city council reversed its stance on criminal justice reform and passed a tough-on-crime bill, the district has long struggled with high rates of violent crime and saw spikes as recently as 2023, with homicides up 35 percent, robberies up 67 percent, and carjackings up 82 percent that year.
