Washington — A CNN analysis of government data revealed that there was a moderate decrease in reported crime in Washington, DC, in the first week following the White House’s successful takeover of the city’s police force and the deployment of federal agents and troops to the district. However, there was a much greater increase in the number of arrests of immigrants during that same period.
The most recent public data released by the Metropolitan Police Department shows that violent crime decreased by about 17% and property crimes decreased by about 19% in the week starting August 12, the first full day the Trump administration took over the department.
However, those patterns differ significantly depending on the kind of crime. According to the data, there was a 14% increase in assault cases with a dangerous weapon and a 6% increase in burglary cases, while car break-ins and robberies decreased by over 40%. Other thefts remained constant from week to week.
Although there haven’t been any since August 13, there have been two murders since President Donald Trump signed his executive order seizing control of the department, which is in line with recent weeks in Washington.
Overall crime has decreased as a result of federal agencies integrating with local law enforcement, supporting arrests, searches, warrant executions, and other local police operations while driving around the district in cars that are only occasionally identified by their flashing red and blue lights.
At the same time, a far more sharp rise in immigration arrests has been fueled by the influx of ICE agents to the district.
According to the administration, since August 7, 300 people without legal immigration status have been arrested by federal officials in Washington, DC. This is more than ten times the district’s average ICE arrest total, CNN’s analysis revealed.
According to data released by the Deportation Data Project, a research organization connected to the University of California, Berkeley law school, the agency arrested an average of 12 immigrants in Washington, DC, each week during the first half of Trump’s administration.
According to one law enforcement official who spoke to CNN, ICE agents follow MPD officers, prepared to intervene if anyone stopped or questioned has overstayed their visa or is in the country illegally in any other way.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson responded to CNN’s findings, saying the media was attempting to dismiss the “exceptional results” of Trump’s efforts in Washington.
“The drops in crime are not ‘moderate,’ they are life-changing for the countless of DC residents and visitors who have not been murdered, robbed, carjacked, or victims of overall violent crime in the last week,” Jackson reported. “The priority of this operation remains getting violent criminals off the streets — regardless of immigration status.”
According to the administration, the immigrants arrested are those who have been arrested for crimes or have outstanding warrants, including some serious offenses. CNN was unable to independently verify the details of those arrests, including the percentage of arrestees charged with non-immigration offenses.
The noticeable increase in immigration numbers also raises concerns among some DC leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, that Trump’s local takeover is primarily intended to target undocumented immigrants.
When asked on Thursday if Trump’s crime emergency was a pretext to enforce the administration’s immigration efforts, Bowser stated that a recent order from Attorney General Pam Bondi “almost exclusively focused on immigration enforcement and homeless encampment enforcement.”
“So I’ll let you draw your own conclusion,” Bowser said.
The DC attorney general has filed a lawsuit challenging Bondi’s order to ignore sanctuary laws that previously limited the police force’s ability to cooperate with ICE on immigration cases. During a hearing last week, however, the federal judge presiding over the case stated that Trump’s authority under the Home Rule Act likely allows him to direct police to assist ICE.
Viral videos have circulated in DC this week of ICE agents — donning their now-signature masks — tackling immigrants, including some food delivery workers, and in one instance breaking car windows to arrest two men.
During one evening of the heightened police presence this week, CNN tracked officers responding to reports of shootings, drug and firearm possessions and one stolen vehicle. Federal agents communicated over local police channels as they stopped and searched vehicles and responded to reports of crime, warning each other about DC’s speed cameras.
MPD and federal partners have also established traffic checkpoints in the past week — a law enforcement tool that’s not common in the district — including a large checkpoint with dozens of officers and agents on a highway leading out of the city.
Officers were seen pulling over certain vehicles and conducting searches, though it was unclear how law enforcement were determining who to pull over and who to allow through.
As night fell, police chatter picked up, with local and federal officers weaving through the streets together in long lines of flashing lights and speeding unmarked cars.
But some incidents, like a shooting in one of the higher crime areas in the Southeast area of the city, were handled solely by MPD officers.
“They only come when bad sh*t happens,” one resident standing outside of the police tape following the shooting told CNN.
On Wednesday night, there appeared to be relatively few federal agents patrolling the streets of DC on foot, something that was commonly seen in the first few days of Trump’s federal response. Instead, agents remained in their nondescript vehicles, waiting for calls to blip in through the radio.
“It just feels like overkill,” another DC resident told CNN during a night out on the popular U-Street corridor in the city, lined with restaurants, clubs and vape shops.
Roughly eight in 10 DC residents oppose Trump’s police takeover and his deployment of the National Guard and FBI to the city, according to a Washington Post-Schar School poll. Vice President JD Vance and other administration figures have dismissed that survey finding, claiming without citing evidence that the federal surge is popular with local residents.
The full picture of crime in DC under Trump’s control is likely to keep evolving. The numbers analyzed by CNN are based on the preliminary data available Friday morning and could change over time, as some crimes take longer to be entered into the department’s database. And the data does not cover all crimes in the city; only some types of offenses are reported daily by the department.
The statistics have also become a political pressure point in Trump’s takeover. On Friday, the president on social media threatened “a complete and total Federal takeover of the City,” accusing Bowser of promoting “false and highly inaccurate crime figures.”
While local officials have pointed to a decline in DC crime in 2024 and 2025 after a spike in 2023, the Trump Justice Department is now investigating whether MPD manipulated crime data.
The investigation comes following reports that an MPD commander was placed on administrative leave amid accusations that the department was falsifying crime data in one district, marking offenses as lower-level crimes than they might actually be. The MPD’s own probe into the issue is ongoing.
However, Trump has overstated the impact of the federal takeover, claiming on Friday that it had resulted in a public safety “miracle” unseen in recent memory: the nation’s capital going a week without a single reported homicide.
“DC was a hellhole, and it’s now safe,” Trump told reporters Friday. “I hate to say this because it sounds bad, but there have been no murders in DC in the last week. That is the first time in anyone’s memory that you haven’t had a murder in a week.”
According to publicly available MPD data, there have been no murders in DC in the last week. Two murders have occurred since Trump signed his executive order seizing control of the police department: one on the evening of August 11, the same day the order was signed, and another on August 13.
This is not the first week without homicides in recent memory, as Trump claims. There were no murders reported from May 4 to May 11, April 11 to 17, or for more than two weeks between February 25 and March 12.
According to district data, 89 homicides have occurred thus far in 2025. In some cases, murders are confirmed and entered into the public MPD database weeks or months after they occur, so more cases may be added.
Protests against the crackdown have been sporadic, with residents in some neighborhoods taking to the streets when they see ICE or other federal agents, sometimes forming crowds and chanting for them to leave.
In court, Justice Department attorneys stated that Trump’s authority over the MPD will expire at the end of the 30-day period specified in the Home Rule Act, which the president has cited as his authority.
However, neither the DOJ nor the White House have stated whether Trump will continue to use federal agents or the hundreds of National Guard members he has deployed once his month-long control of the police department expires. The president himself has stated that he could keep them there “as long as I want.”
