The federalization of Washington, D.C.’s crime response grew even more sweeping on Thursday when Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a two-page order dismantling the city’s sanctuary protections and stripping authority from its local police chief.
The move, packaged under the title “Restoring Safety and Security to the District of Columbia,” is the clearest signal yet that the Trump administration intends to impose direct federal control over the capital’s law enforcement.
Bondi’s order rescinds recent directives that shielded illegal immigrants from arrest or cooperation with federal authorities. Three specific orders, issued over the past two years—including one signed by Metro Police Chief Pamela Smith just hours earlier—were nullified in their entirety.
Those directives had limited when officers could ask about immigration status, prohibited arrests based solely on federal detainers, and restricted collaboration with federal agencies. By Thursday evening, they were gone.
Even more striking was Bondi’s decision to undercut Smith’s authority altogether. In her order, she appointed Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as the Metropolitan Police Department’s “emergency police commissioner,” granting him the full powers and duties of the office. From now on, no general order or directive can be issued within MPD without his approval. Existing leadership is effectively subordinate.
The change followed Trump’s Monday executive order declaring a “crime emergency” in the District and assuming control of its police department under powers provided by the 1973 Home Rule Act. In the days since, the capital has seen a visible surge of federal presence: National Guard patrols, joint operations with DEA, ICE, and FBI, and a flood of arrests. On Wednesday night alone, 45 suspects were detained—29 of them illegal immigrants.
Bondi’s language was blunt: residents, commuters, and tourists “have a right to feel safe and to be free from the scourge of violent crime.” Her message underscored the administration’s position that D.C.’s local government had not just failed, but actively obstructed, efforts to restore public safety.
For Smith, whose attempt to balance local policy with federal pressure ended in a public rescinding of her own order, the rebuke could not be clearer. For city leaders like Mayor Muriel Bowser, already clashing with Trump over the militarization of the capital, the move represents another loss of local control.
But for the administration, it’s a symbolic and practical victory. Sanctuary policies have been erased, federal authority has been cemented, and a new chain of command now directs the capital’s police force. In Bondi’s framing, this is not just about D.C.—it is about reasserting that the federal government will not allow its own capital to be governed by rules it considers unsafe or unlawful.
