WATCH: MPD collaboration with ICE has turned traffic stops into a deportation pipeline
D.C. used to limit police collaboration with immigration enforcement. This video investigation shows how much that's changed.
They’ve been all over social media in D.C. the last month: Videos of federal agents, often masked, forcefully detaining residents – many of whom are then driven away in unmarked police vehicles. The videos often feature agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sometimes joined by officers from D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.
By verifying the authenticity and geolocation of more than 40 videos posted online, nonprofit newsroom Evident Media and independent investigative collective Bellingcat show how MPD is cooperating with ICE, frequently turning routine traffic stops into detention and other immigration enforcement actions. Based on this data set, those traffic stops are biased toward delivery drivers, especially on mopeds, and other trades such as contractors and construction workers.
“We are definitely seeing MPD cooperate at a level that we’ve never seen before,” Michael Lukens, the executive director at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, told Evident. “And it’s resulting in people getting arrested and sent to detention.”
This is a departure from longstanding city policies limiting how much local police will do to enforce immigration. In the past they wouldn’t, for example, hold someone who would otherwise be released so immigration agents can pick them up, or inquire about status during a detention or arrest. We’ve reported on that reality before – and the ways that MPD’s cooperation with ICE is eroding immigrant communities’ trust in local police.
More than 800 federal officers from an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies – including Amtrak Police, U.S. Capitol Police, the FBI, the DEA, and ICE – have been deployed to D.C. in recent weeks. But many mask their faces or don’t wear identification. This reporting documents some of the ways ICE agents can be identified, including badges or vests reading ICE, ERO (Enforcement and Removal Operations), or HSI (Homeland Security Investigations). ICE agents typically drive unmarked vehicles but those documented in this story had license plates from Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Texas.
The 51st is partnering to amplify this local reporting. It’s critical because of how little information is often provided about both those who are ultimately detained – and those detaining them.
Read more about the federal occupation here:
Martin Austermuhle
