Four masked men in police tactical vests surround a young scooter rider, cuffing his hands behind his back. One person, whose face is fully obscured with a cap, sunglasses and a balaclava, is heard on eyewitness video telling the scooter rider: “You came into this country as a J1, as an exchange student. You didn’t show up … You lied, ok?”
“Yeah, he’s illegal, either way,” another person is heard saying, before they lead him to an unmarked car.
Screengrab from a video showing a man being arrested by federal agents along Florida Avenue Northwest, Washington DC on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Source: Instagram/@will.allendupraw
Nearby, two Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) cars are seen blocking part of the lane. Uniformed MPD officers stand around the area, neither intervening nor appearing to participate directly in the arrest.
MPD vehicles seen blocking part of a lane where federal officers are arresting a man on a scooter along Florida Avenue Northwest, Washington DC on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Source: Instagram/@will.allendupraw
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The video was posted by Will Allen-DuPraw, whose profile says that he is a photographer and videographer based in DC, on Sept. 2. Allen-DuPraw wrote in the post that bystanders reported that authorities were stopping Latino men on scooters along Florida Avenue Northwest, a major road in Washington DC, and had arrested two.
An urgent alert sent out on the morning of the same day by Stop ICE Alerts, a community-driven alert network for those affected by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, reported similar information. The alert said that ICE, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) – a branch of ICE focused on investigating transnational crime – and MPD were “stopping Latinos on scooters” and had arrested one or two people along Florida Avenue Northwest.
A Metropolitan Police officer directs traffic at a checkpoint on New York Avenue after US President Donald Trump deployed US National Guard troops to Washington and ordered an increase in the presence of federal law enforcement to assist in crime prevention, in Washington, DC. Source: Reuters/Al Drago
With US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, scenes of federal agents detaining people while accusing them of immigration offences have been cropping up all over social media from around the country. An analysis of ICE arrest data by DC-based think tank Cato Institute found that in June and July alone, ICE conducted almost 9,000 street arrests nationwide of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, charges, or removal orders. About 90 percent of these were immigrants from Latin America.
The incident on Florida Avenue Northwest was one of 42 that Bellingcat and our partner Evident Media geolocated and verified using videos and photos from social media and news reports. These showed federal agent encounters in the capital, in the month or so since Trump’s federal takeover of DC on August 11. The full dataset can be downloaded here.
In the three weeks after DC was placed under federal control, Trump’s administration said more than 300 people without legal immigration status were arrested in the District.
Like previous immigration raids that we documented in Los Angeles, the federal agents involved in the DC cases were often masked and in military wear. Some wore generic “Police” vests, while others had attire indicating specific government entities such as ICE and HSI. The vehicles they used were usually unmarked, with plates from a variety of US states.
Car plates from a variety of US states that federal agents in DC were filmed using in Washington DC. Source: Evident Media
There is one key difference, however. In LA, a state law prohibits local law enforcement from using its resources for immigration enforcement in most cases. But in DC, where no such law applies, MPD has frequently been seen working with federal officers since the federal takeover last month.
In half of the incidents in our dataset, local DC law enforcement could be seen working alongside federal agents. Most of the DC local police were from MPD, though some were from the Metro Transit Police Department. Aside from ICE and HSI, agents from federal agencies including the US Park Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were also seen in the videos.
Agents from US Park Police, FBI, DEA and ATF were seen in the videos. Source: Evident Media
“We are definitely seeing MPD cooperate at a level we’ve never seen before, and it is resulting in people getting arrested and sent to detention,” Michael Lukens, who runs immigrant rights centre Amica, told Evident Media.
MPD has not replied to Evident Media’s queries about their cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies as of publication.
Of the cases we analysed, 22 involved the arrest of delivery drivers or tradespeople, such as workers in an air conditioning and heating truck.
In two widely shared videos, DC resident Tyler DeSue claimed agents pulled over his Uber Eats driver for having “incorrect tags” on his bike, then checked his registration and insurance and saw it was valid. DeSue said they then asked for his immigration status and detained him.
Police officers, one in an HSI vest, seen questioning a man in a video posted by Tyler DeSue on Aug. 17. Source: TikTok/@td13__
The videos DeSue posted did not show the initial encounter between the agents and the driver, but did show the arrest. DeSue can be heard in one video telling agents that the man they were questioning did not understand what they were saying, and they should use Google Translate. Another witness is heard calling the arrest “ridiculous” and questioning if the agents have “better things to do than to harass Uber Eats drivers”.
In a second video, also posted by DeSue, agents are seen wrapping the man in chains before putting him in an unmarked car.
A second video posted by DeSue on Aug. 17 show agents wrapping the man in chains before putting him into an unmarked car. Source: TikTok/@td13__
Another video posted by NPR reporter Chiara Eisner on Aug. 21 shows an agent in a “Police” tactical vest handcuffing a man in front of a truck, with US Park Police nearby. When Eisner asks what is happening, a Park Police officer says this is a traffic enforcement because the man was driving a commercial vehicle on park roads.
US Park Police stand by as a man is arrested by an agent in a “Police” tactical vest, after what they said was a traffic enforcement for driving a commercial vehicle on park roads. Source: TikTok/@chiaraeisner
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Evident Media asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about videos of these two specific incidents, as well as whether federal agents were using race or language as factors in their stops and arrests. In response, a DHS spokesperson said:
“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the US – NOT their skin colour, race or ethnicity. America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists – truly the worst of the worst from our communities.”
The spokesperson also claimed that the men detained in these two incidents were undocumented immigrants who entered the country illegally. They did not mention any other criminal record for the men or comment on why the men were stopped by local police in the first place.
Lukens told Evident Media that ICE agents had been seen in areas with larger immigrant populations, such as Columbia Heights and Adams Morgan, which he described as “high-level racial profiling”.
Constitutionally, the Fourth Amendment protects anyone in the US, regardless of immigration status, from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.
“If you are an ICE officer and the only thing that you have to fall on or to fall back on in justifying arrest is a person’s racial makeup and what vehicle they are driving, then you have conducted an illegal stop and an illegal arrest,” Lukens said.
Melissa Zhu, Eoghan Macguire, Pooja Chaudhuri, Kolina Koltai, Vladimir Zaha, Fraser Crichton and Bonny Albo contributed research to this piece.
From Evident Media, Jennifer Smart, Kevin Clancy and Zach Toombs contributed to research and production for the video report.
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