Videos show impact of Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington

Residents of Washington DC, with one of the largest Latin population in the city, said they have seen an increase in immigration raids since the Trump administration launched a crime campaign.

“People are wandering in fear,” said one of the residents, who wanted to remain unidentified. “I never saw the streets empty.”

Last week, video clips on social media showcases arrests and raids – along with protests from the locals – in the Colombia Heights.

More than 1,000 arrests have been conducted throughout the American capital since the campaign began on August 11 – nearly half of them are suspected immigrants, according to the White House.

BBC Verify reviewed more than ten videos filmed in Colombia Heights and spoke with people who live there to assess the impact on the neighborhood.

It was a video of two men seized by law enforcement officers Posted on Instagram By a local journalist Thursday morning.

In the shots, a number can be seen on a special building. We used this to hole the site on a road in Colombia Heights – about two miles north of the White House – and I went there to learn more about what happened.

We met a woman who witnessed the accident. She said she did not know the two men, but she showed us many of the videos she photographed, including a date that was broadcast on Facebook at 07:39 in that morning.

He shows two men in a red car, surrounded by a group of nine officers – some with a “federal police officer” on their jackets, and some wearing masks.

Then the officers were destroyed by two windows before the men pulled out, forcing one of them to the floor and put it in the handcuffs.

Both men were walking to an unlimited car and expelled, while the woman screams screaming in the Spanish language: “They are fighting for their lives … They broke the windows, do not go out, do not go out.”

Many other spectators can hear “Ice Go Home”, and another cry “You must be very shy.” Someone calls one of the men as “Eric Lopez”.

When we got, we saw the car being pulled away by a man who gave us a number to a person who said he knew the arrested men.

We called the person and responded to a text message to say that the men were from Guatemala, in the United States illegally, and one of them had a wife and a son. He described them as “good children” and claimed that they “have no bad record in anything.”

BBC asked to verify the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) for more details.

“They arrested Ericsson Sebastian Lopez Castman, an illegal foreigner in the car,” an ice agent said.

They added: “The aim of this operation was Darwin Lopez Caston, a criminal illegal foreigner accused of the felony of Manfli Violence. This illegal illegal foreigner was deported from Guatemala twice before entering the country illegally for the third time.”

They said that the officers used the “minimum necessary force.”

The woman who filmed videos wanted to remain unknown, but she invited us to her home near. She said that her family was originally from Central America, but now she became American legal citizens.

Her daughter, who also wanted not to reveal her identity, claimed that the majority of the Latin people in the region were not documented and became increasingly concerned over the past two weeks.

She said, “I was born and brought up here in Washington, DC.” Fortunately, my father has documents … but I am always on the brink of thinking. “Where will they strike after that? Will we, even though we have documents? “” “”

“Even people with documents are hiding because they are afraid.”

Her uncle’s home on the street told us that the Federal agents were targeting last week.

“I went out and saw a group of police officers outside the house. They were knocking and asking my uncle to open the door, and they did not say who were looking for it. They did not offer any documents.”

“We called my aunt,” she says, “I was like, do not open the door … after 20, 30 minutes, they end up leaving.” But they were very afraid. “

The uncle joined us and showed us his documents, which he says is a wave of agents from his window to prove that he is legally in the United States.

He said that the federal authorities were playing in a local park where people play football.

He said that the number of people attending to play had decreased from about 50 to about 15, as many were not documented and afraid of their detention.

He showed us a picture of a large group of agents who gathered near the park.

Several videos also show employees at the FBI and internal security signs, as well as local police, surrounding other properties on Sunday evening.

Local population can be heard screaming, “Get out of our region.”

We have selected videos to a street away.

The photographer, who sent us one of the videos, said that he asked the officers about the reason they were there, and one of them told him that it was because of a “exploitation issue.”

The FBI will not confirm this, but he told BBC to verify: “The FBI in Washington conducted the law enforcement activity that was classified to the court on this site on Sunday, August 24.”

In May, Trump’s great adviser Stephen Miller said he set a goal “at least 3000 ice detention operations every day” – as the administration is trying to submit the president’s campaign to “the biggest mass deportation in history.”

“When you look at the type of people who are arrested [in Washington DC] Austin Rose, the immigration lawyer, says he seems to be just trying to fill their deportation classes.

He believes that many will try to demand resort to the United States, so it will be already known to the authorities, which can be easy to track.

In general, the BBC has achieved 15 video accidents that include federal officers in Colombia Heights.

As of August 26, a total of 169 crimes have been reported this year in the local area surrounding the street that we visited, according to DC Metropolitan Police Crime map.

There were some serious crimes reported in the broader Colombia Heights region – Including the suspected shooting earlier this year.

All the ten people we spoke to on the street said that they felt safe there before the crime campaign.

“I brought my mother here and was like, this place is more likely than the place where we used to live … but since the campaign, it seems less similar to the neighborhood and more similar to a police state,” said Winnie Leesfield, who was living there for a year.

She said: “I went out at 06:50 am to go to work and saw two men arrested a man in a car. They were surrounding him, hanging him, and put the handcuffs on him.

Aliaina Hooks, the other resident who has lived in the region for three years, said the streets have become quieter in recent weeks.

She told us: “There is usually a lot of Latin sellers who were prepared on the sidewalk when I got out of the gym in the morning … but I was going home and there was no one in reality.”

We asked DHS about the number of people arrested in Colombia Heights and whether the area is targeted.

A spokesman said: “We will support the re -establishment of the law, order and public safety, so that the Americans can feel safe in the capital of our nation.”