Below is a letter signed by 58 organizations (including the Festival Center) urging the Chair of the Public Safety Committee on the DC Council to take actions ending the unholy alliance between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Dear Councilmember Pinto,
We are writing to you today as a diverse coalition of 58 faith leaders, organizers, advocates, immigrants and service providers, united by a common goal, namely that the DC government should honor its commitment to Black and Brown Washingtonians, including our immigrant and undocumented communities and our youth. DC Council must stand up to protect our city from violent federal agents, ICE intrusion and oppressive law enforcement tactics by our own Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
All our demands below stem from this truth, that DC is a safer, more welcoming, and more prosperous city when immigrants, our neighbors and their children are protected from law enforcement overreach:
- MPD must stop cooperating with federal immigration enforcement. DC is, and residents overwhelmingly wish to remain, a sanctuary city, as codified in the 2020 Sanctuary Values Amendment Act. A recent poll of DC residents found that 71% opposed MPD cooperating with ICE agents to enforce immigration law. DC’s Sanctuary Values Amendment Act (SVA) sets out clear limitations on the very narrow ways that MPD may cooperate with ICE. This does not include what the public has witnessed, and has been reported in local national news outlets, such as joint immigration raids, coordination on traffic stops, sweeps of street vendors, or MPD providing data, and transportation services for ICE. The Chief’s executive order 25-005 must be rescinded in full, with immediate effect, so our communities can return to their daily lives without fear that they will be snatched off the street and disappeared by those who are sworn to protect them.
- MPD must stop coordinating activities with federal agents for routine police work. Two recent traffic stops, conducted by MPD and HSI officers, have resulted in shootings at civilians. It is unclear from the official record who was responsible for those stops, but we do know that MPD failed to document the shooting in the incident report, continuing a disturbing trend of violating the public’s trust (a few months ago, for example, an officer was placed on leave for similar misrepresentations in crime data). There have been several traffic accidents and injuries caused by federal agents in partnership with MPD engaging in illegal car chases, in one instance crashing into a Metro Bus. No one is made safe by these actions, and MPD’s either implicit or explicit approval and involvement further erodes public trust in an agency not known for its transparency or competence. Rather than expanding local collaboration with federal forces by having MPD join National Guard patrols, the DC council must end cooperation with federal forces, including pushing to disband the “Safe and Beautiful” taskforce and emergency operations center that puts our communities in imminent danger of police and gun violence.
- The Council must hold an on-the-record hearing, to document and respond to DC residents’ concerns and frustrations with MPD and their cooperation with federal agents, and the irresponsible and unnecessary harm to our communities caused by these collaborations. In addition to hearing from the public, the Police Chief must provide on-the-record details of the extent of cooperation between MPD and federal agencies, including data sharing, transport requests, joint enforcement activities, and the number of people arrested in DC who have been requested or transferred to ICE custody, some of which already must be collected by law under the SVA. It is vital that MPD additionally accurately document all federal agencies and agents who are on the scene and active in any traffic stops, detainments and arrests in their police reports, including badge numbers, squad car numbers and the names of the agents and their respective federal agencies. Chief Smith must also detail exactly who was running these joint operations, and MPD must be held to account for any violations of DC law they engaged in. DC businesses, schools, and places of worship are all reporting lower attendance, fewer customers and scared staff members, resulting directly from these federal actions; their losses should be documented and repaired by the DC Council.
- The DC Council must acknowledge and address its own complicity in the harm caused by the federal takeover, and re-evaluate the laws being co-opted by federal agents and MPD to terrorize our communities. The criminalization of fare evasion, for example, has led to acts of violence by law enforcement under the guise of saving the city $2.25. The juvenile curfew has led to images, shared around the world, of heavily armed military and police forces violently attacking Black children. The council should reject a permanent extension of the youth curfew and creation of youth curfew zones, which are ineffective in reducing youth crime or victimization and give young people fewer due process rights than adults.
Finally, while MPD and federal agencies deployed precious resources to arrest people for open containers and sleeping in parks, hundreds of residents lined up for blocks to access housing support services. The juxtaposition could not be starker. DC does not need more force; it needs more care. Our communities need housing, safety, and dignity. The Council must invest in the resources people need, not law enforcement activities to brutalize our residents.
As Chairperson of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, you hold a particular responsibility to DC residents to take swift action on issues impacting the daily public safety of so many of our communities, and thereby demonstrate the ability of this city to govern itself without capitulating to federal pressure that is determined to strip away our DC sovereignty.
Signed:
- All Souls Church Unitarian
- Ayuda
- Beloved Community Incubator
- Black Swan Academy
- Capitol Hill United Methodist Church
- Christ Lutheran Church
- Cleveland Park Congregation UCC Mission & Social Action Committee
- Community Church Washington DC
- Congregation Action Network
- Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ
- DC Action
- DC Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression
- DC Jobs with Justice
- DC Justice Lab
- DC Mutual Aid Apothecary
- Dumbarton United Methodist Church
- EmpowerEd
- Faith in Public Life Action
- Faith United Church of Christ
- Families Not Feds Coalition
- The Festival Center
- First Congregational Church
- First Congregational UCC
- First Shift Justice Project
- Foundry United Methodist
- Free DC
- Freedom Road Socialist Organization DC
- Good Trouble Cooperative
- Harriet’s Wildest Dreams
- Hoyas for Immigrant Rights
- Jewish Voice for Peace-DC Metro
- Just Peace Ministries
- Legal Aid DC
- Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ
- Luther Place Memorial Church
- Metro DC DSA
- Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid
- More Than Our Crimes
- Movimiento Migrante DC
- Muslims for Just Futures (MJF)
- National Domestic Workers Alliance – DC Chapter
- New Synagogue Project
- Open Goal Project
- People Congregational UCC
- Platform Of Hope
- Positive Force DC
- Reframe Health and Justice
- ROC-DC
- Save Chinatown Solidarity Network
- Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias
- SEIU Local 500
- UCC, CAC Justice and Witness Action Network – DC Team
- Ward 4 Faith Leaders
- Washington Interfaith Network (WIN)
- The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
- Washington National Cathedral Sanctuary Ministry
- We Are Family – Senior Outreach Network
- 8th Day Faith Community
