Trump’s D.C. takeover escalates with surge in arrests and homeless encampments cleared

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• Amna Nawaz:

  The Trump administration's federal takeover of Washington, D.C., is escalating, with several people arrested at high-profile locations and homeless encampments torn down. Protests also erupted in the streets last night after the White House said federal agents would patrol around the clock and the president himself hinted that his monthlong crackdown could last even longer.

• Protestors:

  Get off our streets! Get off our streets!

• Amna Nawaz:

  Protesters took to the Northwest D.C. streets last night.

• Protester:

  Why are you here? You're trying to arresting innocent people. What's your purpose? What's your goal?

• Amna Nawaz:

  Responding to this show of force, federal agents alongside city police now under federal control running a checkpoint at a busy intersection.

• Woman:

  Turn left.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Some residents warned approaching cars to turn away.

  Police say they arrested 76 people in the District yesterday, outpacing last year's daily average of 56. And the D.C. police chief said today that information collected during these kinds of traffic stops could now be turned over to federal immigration authorities. It's all part of a federal crackdown in the nation's capital launched by President Trump, citing a crime emergency that the data doesn't fully support.

  Donald Trump, President of the United States: Crime is rampant in D.C. It's rampant in our generally blue-run cities, and they have got to do something about it.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Federalizing the D.C. police force carries a 30-day legal limit. The president said yesterday he may extend that.

  And this morning, blocks from the White House, another part of the president's plan went into action, homeless encampments toppled, and the people who once sheltered there nowhere in sight. More visible in D.C., National Guard troops activated by the president as part of what he calls an anti-crime agenda.

  For more on the D.C. takeover, we're joined now by Juliette Kayyem, former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. She's now at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

  Juliette, welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

  Juliette Kayyem, Former U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary: Thanks for having me.

• Amna Nawaz:

  I just want to ask you to react to some of those scenes we just showed. You have federal agents wearing Homeland Security gear running a traffic stop with Metropolitan Police, National Guard troops patrolling high-tourist areas like the National Mall.

  I mean, from your experience, is it clear what the intention and strategy is here?

• Juliette Kayyem:

  So there's two different pieces of this.

  One is, federal law enforcement agencies, FBI, HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, working with, in tandem Washington, D.C., police. This is — it's unique. It is not clear what their — what the federal agents' authority is. It is not clear whether they have — they can arrest for a petty crime, since that's not a federal crime.

  And I think there's a lot of confusion about what their authority is. Right now, we just see them walking around. The second is what we call presence patrols that is being done by the National Guard. Presence patrols are, we are here. We're an army or a unit that is making its presence known.

  It is not generally used in the military because there's really no task or purpose for it. There's no mission for it. It's just simply that we are present. And, in both cases, the concern is, because the mission isn't clear — ending crime, getting rid of poverty, all of those things are sort of nebulous in terms of what are the tactics that would justify federal involvement — it is not at all clear whether the mission will maintain or you're going to get mission creep over the next couple of days and weeks.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Juliette, when the president launched this effort, he talked about ramping up the use of force, right? He said that the D.C. police are now allowed to do, in his words, whatever the hell they want, promising forces would hit harder now.

  Does the presence of federal forces, federal agents somehow allow for more force in these interactions?

• Juliette Kayyem:

  It doesn't.

  I mean, and, to be clear, there's nothing — there's no change in the laws of what engagement is. If someone spits at a police officer, they're not allowed to shoot them. That is not — that's not permissible. That is not an appropriate response.

  The president talks like this as a signal of authority, aggressiveness, and some would even say totalitarianism, or at least the usurpation of local control by the executive branch.

  Where I worry is, of course, with a undefined mission and unclear integration of these forces with these forces with now the National Guard, you will get mistakes. You will get people working and acting outside their authority. You will get responses to First Amendment activities, including lawful protests, that violate the First Amendment and undermines people's rights to free speech. You're allowed to criticize this activity.

  And let's just be honest here. This is a lot of people who are now not looking and not investigating fentanyl and domestic violence and terrorism.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Juliette, the president has said he wants to extend this authority in D.C., possibly even to other cities. What are the implications of that?

• Juliette Kayyem:

  Well, there's going to be the legal implications. D.C. is unique. It has a home rule aspect to it. What would be the legal authority for the president to do that?

  There's also the political issue, of course. Is this an attack on Democrat — Democratically run cities, blue cities, blue cities in blue states? And is that the appropriate use of the military or federal law enforcement?

  But I want to take a step back and say my concern is, is this is working? We have decades of research about what works in this arena, especially in terms of policing. It's community policing. It's outreach to communities. It's engaging people and neighborhoods that might have crime to work with them to minimize crime. This is exactly what D.C. has done.

  A federal military or federal law enforcement overlay seems many steps away from that.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Juliette Kayyem of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government joining us again tonight.

  Juliette, thank you. Good to speak with you.

• Juliette Kayyem:

  Thank you.