Latest news with #FederalTakeover
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump pledged to move homeless people from Washington. What we know and don't know about his plans
President Donald Trump says homeless people in the nation's capital will be moved far from the city as part of his federal takeover of policing in the District of Columbia and crackdown on crime. With his exact plans unclear, there is concern among advocates and others who say there are better ways to address the issue of homelessness than clearing encampments, as the Republican administration has pledged to do.
Associated Press
6 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump pledged to move homeless people from Washington. What we know and don't know about his plans
President Donald Trump says homeless people in the nation's capital will be moved far from the city as part of his federal takeover of policing in the District of Columbia and crackdown on crime. With his exact plans unclear, there is concern among advocates and others who say there are better ways to address the issue of homelessness than clearing encampments, as the Republican administration has pledged to do. Washington's status as a congressionally established federal district gives Trump the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime. Here's a look at what we know and what questions remain about how Trump's actions will affect the city's homeless population: How many homeless people are in Washington?It is difficult to obtain accurate counts of homeless populations. On one day at the end of each January, municipal agencies across the United States perform what is called a 'point-in-time' count aimed at capturing the total number of people in emergency shelters, transitional housing or without any housing. The 2025 count in the district put the total at 5,138 adults and children, a 9% decrease compared with the year before, according to Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser. Where will the city's homeless people be taken? It's not entirely clear. Trump wrote on his social media site before Monday's news conference announcing the takeover that 'The homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.' Asked during a media briefing at the White House on Tuesday where homeless people would be relocated, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local police and federal agencies would 'enforce the laws that are already on the books,' which, she said, 'have been completely ignored.' Citing a city regulation that she said gives local police 'the authority to take action when it comes to homeless encampments,' Leavitt said homeless people 'will be given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services.' Those who refuse 'will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.' In the past five months, the U.S. Park Police has removed 70 homeless encampments, giving the people living in them the same options, she said. As of Tuesday, Leavitt said only two homeless encampments remained in district parks maintained by the National Park Service and would be removed this week. What are city officials doing for the homeless? District officials said Tuesday they were making additional shelter space available after Trump said federal agents would remove homeless people in the city. Kevin Donahue, the city administrator, said outreach workers were visiting homeless encampments and that the city has a building available that could house as many as 200 people, if needed. Donahue made the comments during a conversation with community advocates and Bowser. The conversation was broadcast on X. He said the outreach would continue through the week with a 'greater level of urgency.' Bowser said that when Trump sees homeless encampments in the city it 'triggers something in him that has him believing our very beautiful city is dirty, which it is not.' What are Washington residents saying? Washington residents emphasized reductions in crime in recent years and concerns over the removal of homeless encampments in interviews Tuesday criticizing the federal takeover of the city's police department. Jeraod Tyre, who has lived in the city for 15 years, said 'crime has been slowing down lately' and argued that federal troops would only escalate tensions because they do not have 'relationships with the people in the community' like local police do. Sheiena Taylor, 36, said she is more fearful as a result of the presence of federal forces in the city where she was born and raised. Taylor said she has seen federal officers around her home and on the subway and worries about their targeting of young people and people experiencing homelessness. 'Being homeless isn't a crime,' she said, emphasizing the need for solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime rather than policing. What do we still not know? It's not exactly clear what agents specifically will be tasked with moving homeless people to areas outside the city. There also hasn't been detailed information about how the people will be housed or provided for in new locations. Some advocates have raised constitutional questions about the legality of forcibly removing homeless people from the city. ___ Associated Press writers River Zhang, Christine Fernando, Mike Balsamo and Darlene Superville contributed to this report. ___ Kinnard can be reached at
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
People living in the cities just want to be safe: John Ashbrook
'Ruthless Podcast' co-hosts Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook discuss the reaction from some Democratic big city mayors to President Donald Trump's federal takeover of Washington, D.C. on 'The Story.'
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Donald Trump's Washington DC intervention labelled as ‘unsettling and unprecedented' by mayor
Update: Date: 2025-08-12T09:37:43.000Z Title: Trump's order to deploy troops in DC is 'unsettling and unprecedented' - DC mayor Content: Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I'm Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours. We start with news that Donald Trump has ordered the national guard to Washington DC and seized control of the city's police force, in a move described as 'unsettling and unprecedented' by DC's mayor. The US president's move was swiftly condemned as a 'disgusting, dangerous and derogatory' assault on the political independence of a racially diverse city. The federal takeover is expected to be in effect for 30 days, the White House confirmed to the Guardian. Speaking at a White House press conference on Monday, Trump said he was taking 'a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is liberation day in DC and we're going to take our capital back.' He described Washington DC as 'one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world', claiming its murder rate is higher than Bogotá or Mexico City, even though violent crime is at a 30-year low. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was among officials joining Trump on the podium, said 800 national guard troops would take to the streets of Washington over the coming week. 'They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners,' he said. Later Muriel Bowser, the mayor of DC, who has pursued a non-confrontational relationship with Trump, described the intervention as 'unsettling and unprecedented' but declined to criticise the president directly. 'I've said before, and I'll repeat, that I believe that the president's view of DC is shaped by his Covid-era experience during his first term,' she told reporters. 'It is true that those were more challenging times related to some issues. It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post-Covid but we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets, and gave our police officers more tools.' Read the full story here: In other developments: President Donald Trump has nominated conservative economist EJ Antoni to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that is responsible for collecting and publishing the country's employment and inflation figures. The nomination comes after Trump fired the BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, earlier this month following the release of a weak jobs report which he claimed had been 'rigged'. Trump has once again delayed implementing sweeping tariffs on China, announcing another 90-day pause just hours before the last agreement between the world's two largest economies was due to expire. On Monday, Trump signed an executive order extending the deadline for higher tariffs on China until 10 November. A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday began hearing evidence and arguments on whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed national guard soldiers and US marines to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids this summer. The Trump administration federalized California national guard members and sent them to the second-largest US city over the objections of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and city leaders. Trump previewed his Friday meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, claiming he will know 'probably in the first two minutes' whether a peace deal can be made. Trump confirmed that while Volodymyr Zelenskyy wouldn't be a part of the summit, he would call him first as soon as he saw a 'fair deal' for a ceasefire emerge. He also didn't rule out the possibility of a future trading relationship with Russia. A federal judge rejected on Monday a request from the justice department to unseal the grand jury transcripts relating to the criminal investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. The judge wrote that the transcripts could not be released publicly – 'casually or promiscuously' – as Trump's government had pushed for because it would risk 'unraveling the foundations of secrecy upon which the grand jury is premised'.
