D.C. sues Trump administration, Bondi over federal takeover of D.C. police
The District of Columbia sued the Trump administration and Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi Friday for making an attempt to finish native directives that restrict cooperation between D.C. police and federal immigration authorities throughout the Trump administration’s takeover of the District’s police pressure.
The Trump administration’s makes an attempt to finish the insurance policies represents an effort “to divest the District and its residents of any management of their native police pressure and place it, for all functions, below the management of the federal authorities,” D.C. Legal professional Normal Brian Schwalb wrote in a criticism.
Bondi’s order terminating the native directives got here Thursday night time and amounted to a sweeping reversal of “sanctuary” insurance policies within the nation’s capital. It allowed the Metropolitan Police Division, at the least briefly, to totally cooperate with federal brokers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and different immigration authorities. The lawyer common stated she was naming Terry Cole, the present head of the DEA, as emergency police chief in Washington. She cited Mr. Trump’s emergency declaration to reverse a number of native police insurance policies.
The D.C. lawyer common is asking a federal choose to vacate Bondi’s order and declare that the U.S. lawyer common lacks the authority to concern orders asserting “operational management” over the district’s police division.
“These illegal assertions of authority will create quick, devastating, and irreparable harms for the District. Most critically, the order threatens to upend the command construction of MPD and wreak operational havoc throughout the division, endangering the protection of the general public and legislation enforcement officers alike,” Schwalb wrote. “There isn’t a larger threat to public security in a big, skilled legislation enforcement group like MPD than to not know who’s in command.”
Bondi rescinded steering issued by D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith earlier Thursday that allowed cops to move ICE brokers and their detainees and to share immigration info throughout visitors stops, however that also barred most native involvement in federal immigration enforcement.
The lawyer common additionally eliminated steering that prohibited D.C. cops from looking out databases for the needs of figuring out somebody’s immigration standing, even when there is no underlying legal warrant.
She additionally suspended guidelines that barred D.C. police from arresting people primarily based on administrative immigration warrants signed by ICE officers — not judges — and from aiding federal brokers throughout such arrests. The rescinded coverage required officers to have a legal nexus earlier than finishing up an arrest, prohibiting arrests solely primarily based on suspected civil immigration legislation violations.
Bondi’s makes an attempt to finish the MPD insurance policies conflict with the District’s 2020 legal guidelines that gave native police impartial authority from immigration officers. In June, the D.C. Council voted down Mayor Muriel Bowser’e effort to repeal the sanctuary metropolis standing in a 2026 funds invoice.
CBS Information has reached out to Bowser’s workplace for remark.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez
contributed to this report.
