WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump launched a law enforcement operation in Washington, D.C., four months ago, he billed it as a mission to fight rampant crime.
But activists and local leaders say that description belies what has emerged as a simultaneous crackdown on immigrants, who have grown increasingly concerned for their status and safety in the city.
One-third of all arrests made during the operation were immigration-related, according to official figures reviewed by The Associated Press. Activists and immigrants say arrests are frequent and frightening. A lawsuit alleges they are often unlawful. And with no end in sight to the surge in law enforcement in the city, there is no indication the immigration arrests will end.
The threat to immigrants in the city has now become routine, the activists and local leaders say.
Immigration enforcement sweeps are “not making the nightly news anymore because it’s business as usual,” said Washington council member Brianne K. Nadeau.
Trump launched the federal intervention in D.C. in mid-August with an emergency order that took over the city's police force and sent federal agents in along with hundreds of National Guard troops.
Trump's Republican administration says the D.C. mission is intended to fight crime and has touted it as a resounding success, although crime was already on the decline before the operation began.
Official figures show that about 33% of the more than 7,500 arrests made since the operation began through Monday were immigration-related. In September, an Associated Press analysis found that 40% of the 2,400 arrests were immigration-related.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures released by the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project, of the roughly 1,130 immigration arrests made in the heavily Democratic city from the start of the operation to Oct. 15, the dates for which data was provided, 947 had no criminal record or pending criminal charge.
“The focus of President Trump’s highly successful D.C. operation has been to address crime committed by anyone, regardless of immigration status,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, who added that many of those arrested were committing crimes, had outstanding warrants or had prior convictions.
The statistics showed arrests in the period were wide-ranging, including homicide and drug charges.
Although the emergency order affecting the police lapsed in September, arrest sweeps, checkpoints, masked law enforcement and unmarked vehicles are still visible.
Dozens of witnesses in a more than 10-hour municipal hearing earlier this month spelled out the ongoing concerns. Residents said they had seen detentions, often by masked and unidentifiable law enforcement agents. Common targets were school drop-off zones, food distribution sites, landscapers and apartments with large populations of Hispanic residents. There were numerous complaints that the local Metropolitan Police Department has continued working closely with ICE in its immigration efforts despite a pledge by Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, that they would not.
Nadia Salazar Sandi, a Bolivian immigrant, told the meeting that multiple family members have been detained over recent months, leaving what she said were empty seats at Thanksgiving dinner.
“This is terrifying,” she said of the immigration operations. “I’m a citizen now, and I walk with my passport.”
Witnesses said a number of the detentions began with routine traffic stops by the Metropolitan Police. One instance began as an expired-tag stop that drew more than a dozen federal officers and agents.
“Every single day my neighbors are being harassed, assaulted and kidnapped," said Leah Tribbett, a city resident. "I could talk for probably the entirety of this hearing and still not recount every single instance of brutality that I’ve seen.”
An earlier information gathering held by Nadeau revealed an increasing desire by some immigrants to fade out of the public eye. One witness was a medical professional who recounted how one family was considering opting out of speech and occupational therapy for their autistic children out of fear authorities would be waiting for them at the clinic.
A federal judge earlier this month blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the people arrested have violated immigration law or there is knowledge they are flight risks.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs’ attorneys argued federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in neighborhoods with large numbers of Hispanic immigrants and then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately.
José Escobar Molina, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in court documents that he had temporary legal protections and lived in the city for 25 years. He said he was walking from his apartment building to his work truck when two cars pulled up next to him. Unidentified federal agents grabbed and handcuffed him without asking for his name, identification or any information about his immigration status, he said. They also did not ask where he lived, how long he has been in the area or whether he had ties to the community, he said.
Attorneys for the Trump administration argued that agents had probable cause to detain Molina and the other plaintiffs in the manner that was used.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said arrests in Washington and beyond are carried out lawfully and all detainees receive due process.
Madeleine Gates, associate counsel with the nonprofit Washington Lawyers' Committee and one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said they have submitted additional statements by community members with dozens of instances in which people were arrested outside proper procedures.
“What we’ve actually seen in practice are officers arresting people without seeming to know who they are,” Gates said.
Trump has not said when he might draw down the federal law enforcement surge. Following the shooting of two National Guard members allegedly by an Afghan national in the city last month, Trump said he planned to bring in hundreds more troops to support the operation.
Local leaders are holding hearings and raising the alarm about the arrests. But they acknowledge that in a federal district with limited autonomy, there is little they can do to push back.
“The frustrating truth," said Brooke Pinto, a city council member, “is that we do not have the same levers of power and control, nor the same rights, as a district that every one of the 50 other states have to protect our residents.”
FILE - People hold signs warning drivers of a checkpoint operated by the Metropolitan Police Department and federal agencies, including officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), on Georgia Avenue in the northern part of Washington, Aug. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - Federal law enforcement officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) conduct a traffic stop and detain people, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin emphasized Friday that Moscow’s troops were advancing across the battlefield in Ukraine and voiced confidence the Kremlin would achieve its goals militarily if Kyiv doesn't agree to Russia's conditions in peace talks.
Speaking at his tightly orchestrated annual news conference, Putin declared that Russian forces have “fully seized strategic initiative” and would make more gains by year's end.
In the early days of the conflict in 2022, Ukraine's forces thwarted an attempt by Russia’s larger, better-equipped army, to capture the capital of Kyiv. But the fighting soon settled into grinding battles, and Moscow's troops have made slow and steady progress over the years. Putin frequently touts this progress — even though it's not the lightning advance many expected.
“Our troops are advancing all across the line of contact, faster in some areas or slower in some others, but the enemy is retreating in all sectors,” Putin said at the live news conference, which is combined with a nationwide call-in show that offers Russians across the country the opportunity to ask questions of their leader.
Putin, 73, has ruled the country for 25 years and uses the event to cement his power and air his views on domestic and global affairs.
This year, the news conference took place against the backdrop of a peace plan in Ukraine put forward by U.S. President Donald Trump. Despite the extensive diplomatic push, Washington’s efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands from Moscow and Kyiv.
While the event has previously focused heavily on domestic questions — and has offered Putin a chance to expound on topics from the price of eggs to water cuts — Ukraine dominated it this year. Since it is highly choreographed, that could reflect the Kremlin’s desire to assuage the public after nearly four years of fighting.
Putin reaffirmed that Moscow was ready for a peaceful settlement that would address the “root causes” of the conflict, a reference to the Kremlin’s tough conditions for a deal.
The Russian leader wants all the areas in four key regions captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He has also insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured yet. Kyiv has publicly rejected all these demands.
The Kremlin has also insisted that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO and warned that it wouldn't accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance members and would view them as “legitimate target.”
Putin also has repeatedly said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language — demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed readiness to drop Ukraine’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to alliance members. But at the same time, he has emphasized that Ukraine believes NATO membership remains the best security guarantee.
″The United States don’t see us in NATO, for now," Zelenskyy said this week. “Politicians change.”
Putin rebuffed Western claims about purported Russian plans to attack European nations as “sheer nonsense” aimed at deflecting public attention from domestic problems.
He particularly singled out NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte for his statements about the Kremlin's aggressive intentions, pointing out Trump's recently published national security strategy that doesn’t name Russia as a direct adversary. “How can you prepare NATO for a war with Russia if the main member of NATO doesn't consider us as an enemy?” Putin said.
He alleged that European elites “impudently” backed Trump's Democratic rival Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election and now hope the U.S. political landscape will change after the midterm elections to Congress, helping raise pressure on the White House.
As it faces grinding Russian advances across the front line and relentless attacks on its energy facilities, Ukraine is on the verge of bankruptcy — and it desperately needs more cash from its Western allies.
On Friday, European Union leaders agreed to provide a massive interest-free loan, but they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds.
The leaders tried to reassure Belgium, where most of the frozen assets are held, that they would protect it from any retaliation from Moscow if it backed the plan, but the leaders eventually opted to borrow the money on capital markets.
Putin said using Russian assets to help Kyiv would have amounted to “robbery,” adding that the move would have spooked investors, “dealing not only an image blow but undermining confidence in the eurozone.”
Putin told the audience the flow of volunteer soldiers has remained strong, topping 400,000 this year. It was not possible to independently verify that claim since little is known about the recruitment effort.
But the government offers relatively high pay and extensive benefits that have helped swell troop ranks. The Kremlin says that it exclusively relies on volunteers to fight in Ukraine, but some media reports and rights groups have said that military officers often coerce conscripts into signing military contracts.
Asked by a soldier’s widow about the slowness in paying out a pension, Putin apologized and vowed that the issue would be quickly solved — an exchange typical of the annual event, which the Russian leader often uses to show his command of a wide array of subjects and his ability to solve problems.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, background center, speaks during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to attend his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, speaks during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks at the annual board meeting of the country's Defense Ministry in Moscow, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025. (Kristina Kormilitsyna, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
