This statement can be attributed to Wendy Chun-Hoon, president and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)

Washington, D.C., August 12, 2025–During a White House press conference on Monday morning, President Trump declared a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C., despite evidence to the contrary. The president federalized the D.C. police department and mobilized 800 members of the National Guard to remove encampments of homeless residents to, in the president’s words, “fight crime” in the city. 

The rhetoric used by all speakers at the press conference was racist, xenophobic, transphobic, and discriminatory against homeless members of the D.C. community, who are disproportionately Black. Using othering language like “they/them” referring to youth of color, “bedlam,” or “slums” pathologizes structural inequality. Coupling this language with deliberate misinterpretations of crime data and sensationalized stories places people experiencing homelessness at even higher risk of dehumanization and violence. Under a recent executive order, this population is already facing renewed attacks on strained support systems and privacy protections. 

Furthermore, this move by the president is blatant abuse of the D.C. Home Rule Act of 1973 and the latest refusal to grant the District statehood. Trump is flooding the streets with FBI agents and the National Guard and federalizing local law enforcement in spite of violent crime rates that are at a 30-year low in D.C., and in spite of the wishes of D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and brown. 

Demanding that people experiencing homelessness leave the city will not make D.C. safer. In fact, the resources diverted toward mass displacement of homeless people will result in a greater police presence. The root causes of homelessness include unaffordable rents, lack of access to mental health and substance use treatment, and unlivable wages. To truly end homelessness, we should invest public dollars in expanding the supply of affordable housing and ensuring accessible, high-quality mental health and substance use treatment services.

Additionally, researchers have repeatedly disproven a direct link between more law enforcement agents and a higher level of public safety, invalidating measures aimed at “restoring law and order,” which ultimately hurt Black and brown people disproportionately. This increased presence can have deadly consequences, as it did in Milwaukee when a local Black man was killed by out-of-town law enforcement brought in to securitize the downtown area for the Republican National Convention.

In addition to the inappropriate takeover of the D.C. police department, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to strike fear into the local population mirrors how the administration used the deployment of 4,000 guard troops and 700 active Marines in Los Angeles to facilitate the arrest and deportation of immigrants and quell people’s constitutionally protected right to non-violently protest their neighbors’ kidnapping. 

Like L.A., D.C. is being used as a testing site to normalize the use of military personnel against people in our community without the existence of an actual crisis. Rather than advance public safety, the administration’s actions further a political agenda rooted in demonizing race and poverty.  

At a time when people with the lowest incomes are already struggling with inflation, a softening job market, and the slashing of programs that support basic needs, the last thing our nation should do is to use force against people who don’t have the resources to fight back.