After federal control over the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) expired Sept. 10, Republican lawmakers introduced multiple bills that would give the federal government more authority over the District, reigniting concerns about the city’s political independence.
Claiming a crime emergency in D.C., President Donald Trump federalized the MPD Aug. 11, which expired after Congress did not vote to extend the order. Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to cooperate with the White House and federal agencies, except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), relieving some of the tension between the federal and city governments.
Maeve Kramer (CAS ’26), a student who grew up in D.C., said Trump’s moves are incomprehensible, and she is worried how D.C. will cooperate long-term with the federal government.
“I get that it’s all political, but I think sometimes I try to rationalize things from the opposing point of view,” Kramer told The Hoya. “And this is just one of those things that I could not figure out any kind of rational argument for the life of me.”
“Anything that does something substantial to D.C. as a community and to the people without being voted on by those people is an overreach of federal power,” Kramer added.
Georgetown University community members previously condemned the federalization of the MPD and threats to D.C.’s autonomy. Critics of increased federal control cite its implications for the 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which transferred some powers originally held by the U.S. Congress to the local District government.
Two lawmakers joined Georgetown students and faculty at a Sept. 9 walkout protesting the MPD’s federalization and Trump’s other policies. Thousands of D.C. residents also protested the federal takeover in a Sept. 6 march.
Colie Long — a program associate at Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform advocate and a longtime D.C. resident — said Bowser’s decision to collaborate with the federal government and the potential of congressional action threaten the MPD’s ties with local communities.
“It was of no purpose, because historically, the D.C. that I grew up in was always a community-based area,” Long told The Hoya. “Even though we had problems, it was more community-based policing. Everyone in the neighborhood held each other accountable.”
Long added that the federal government engaged in “selective policing” by targeting impoverished areas.
“It’s like we’re back in the 1950s and ’60s, where they were enforcing vacancy laws,” Long said. “Police pull up on neighborhoods and you just see them harassing young black and brown individuals.”
Joseph Stocker (CAS ’28), who attended high school in D.C., said he worries increased federal control may allow national politics to obscure local needs.
“I worry that it’ll leave some politics injected into the D.C. law enforcement system,” Stocker told The Hoya. “There probably should have been a little more of a fight put up. I’m just concerned about what that involvement will look like going forward.”
Advait Swaroop (CAS ’27) — director of external activism for Georgetown’s chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a legal nonprofit — said he is concerned Trump will decide to take over MPD again.
“While the president may be satisfied for now with the condition of the District, this may change at any moment, and he retains the power to re-impose his authority at any time; only once the foundational issues regarding the enforcement of immigration and criminal law are reconciled between the local and federal government will the District achieve a definitive outcome,” Swaroop wrote to The Hoya.
William Banks, professor emeritus of law and public administration at Syracuse University, said Bowser’s cooperation will ensure the federal government continues to exert influence over the MPD.
“Not extending the emergency has little consequence, mainly because D.C. officials have agreed to most of the changes and new personnel sought by the feds,” Banks wrote to The Hoya. “In addition, because Trump commands the National Guard he doesn’t require an emergency declaration to deploy them in the district. Congress can change the underlying rules at any time, expanding or contracting D.C. sovereignty.”
Bowser created a new city agency, the Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center (SBEOC), Sept. 2 to coordinate the District’s relationship with federal law enforcement.
Even while pledging cooperation with the federal government, Bowser said ICE was incompatible with the MPD’s mission.
“Immigration enforcement is not what the MPD does,” Bowser said at a Sept. 10 news conference. “And with the end of the emergency, it won’t be what MPD does in the future.”
In response, Trump said he would consider federalizing the MPD again.
Congress is also considering a suite of 13 bills targeting D.C. autonomy, seeking to exert greater federal control over the District. Four of those bills overhauling the D.C. criminal justice system passed the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week but will likely face challenges in the Senate.
Swaroop said he is worried threats to D.C.’s autonomy will cause lasting damage to the District.
“I fear that many of the bills moving through the House that seek to change D.C.’s criminal-justice rules (including measures that would affect juvenile prosecution and local judicial selection) or to extend presidential emergency powers over MPD generally seek to further strip the district, a city of over 700,000 residents, of its few rights to autonomy and self rule,” Swaroop wrote. “It also seeks to undercut decades of locally driven public-safety and law-enforcement reform.”
Stocker said the bills could restrain D.C.’s ability to fight back against possible encroachment by the federal government in the future.
“I think it’s a bad thing that D.C. doesn’t have enough autonomy now to resist federal overreach,” Stocker said. “I’d be worried that the little autonomy D.C. has would be shrunk even more.”
Kramer urged officials and residents to oppose Congress’ bills, saying threats to D.C.’s institutions jeopardize the District’s independence.
“It’s death by 1,000 cuts,” Kramer said. “If you keep introducing smaller bills that take away some kind of smaller power from D.C., it gets to the point where, does home rule really even exist at all?”
“I feel like we have to fight every single one of these battles,” Kramer added. “Otherwise home rule is going to die in darkness, and we’re not going to notice it until it’s too late.”