President Trump announced Monday that he will federalize control of law enforcement in Washington, D.C. The move follows his threat to act after a brutal attack on a DOGE staffer who tried to defend a woman during a carjacking. National Guard troops will supplement D.C. Metro Police in an effort to quell violent crime. Americans are tired of excuses for why their cities feel dirty and unsafe when we already know how to fix them. Crime is a policy choice, and Trump has taken decisive action with a promise to restore law and order to the nation’s capital.
The United States is the most powerful nation on earth, and Washington is its imperial capital. History shows the state of the capital often mirrors the health of the civilization. The comparison is not flattering. In Japan or Singapore, a woman can walk alone at night without fear. In Washington, ordinary people are routinely harassed, assaulted, and robbed. Everyone knows why this disparity exists and how to solve it, but political correctness has made the truth unspeakable.
To succeed, Trump must ignore the inevitable accusations of racism and authoritarianism and focus on results.
Ideally, crime declines when a virtuous population maintains strong cultural norms and self-control. When virtue isn’t enough, the state must deliver swift and certain justice. If laws go unenforced, honest people quickly learn they are fools for obeying them, while marginal characters drift toward crime. Arrests must be followed by real penalties. As Rudy Giuliani proved in New York with broken-windows policing, consistent enforcement of even minor laws dismantles a culture of permissibility and encourages respect for the rules.
If we know regular enforcement and strong penalties work, why do Democrats choose the opposite in the cities they run?
Their answer always returns to racism. Crime data shows black Americans commit a disproportionate share of crime. Enforcing the law honestly will result in more black arrests and incarcerations. Neither Democrats nor most Republicans will discuss this fact or ask the black community to confront it. Instead, they declare the system racist by design.
Once the system is branded racist, “criminal justice reform” becomes the only solution. Because the underlying causes go unaddressed, disparities persist. To make the system look less racist, enforcement is scaled back. Heather Mac Donald calls this the “Ferguson effect”: Police who fear becoming national pariahs simply stop policing black neighborhoods. Law enforcement retreats from the areas where crime is highest. Officers are told to overlook minor crimes to lower minority arrest rates. Prosecutors cut deals, and early release programs proliferate to improve incarceration statistics. This is exactly the formula for more crime and less safety.
As a former crime reporter, I’ve had candid conversations with officers about this. Police know where most crime happens and who commits it, but politics make addressing it a nightmare. Officers say they sometimes ignore domestic violence or burglary calls in certain neighborhoods. They want to go home to their families, not become nationally infamous for answering the “wrong” call. The number of incarcerated black Americans may fall, but deaths from traffic accidents to homicides rise. Policies enacted “for” the black community make life more dangerous for them — and for everyone else.
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When asked about the chain of command under Trump’s initiative, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith, a black woman, replied, “What does that mean?” Not reassuring. It suggests that in many cities, police chiefs are chosen less for competence than for their DEI value to activists. If the officials charged with maintaining public order under the dictates of gay race communism cannot grasp basic law enforcement concepts, they will fail.
Trump has taken on a complicated challenge. Restoring order may be straightforward in theory, but the politics are treacherous. To succeed, he must ignore the inevitable accusations of racism and authoritarianism and focus on results. In an era when most politicians flee responsibility, Trump is embracing it. If he succeeds, he will restore safety and dignity to the capital and create a model that could shame other cities into action.
Some compare Trump’s move to Nayib Bukele’s crackdown in El Salvador. The most important lesson from that comparison is that success speaks for itself. If Trump’s takeover produces a radically safer capital, Americans will demand the same in their own cities.
President Trump is right: It’s a disgrace that violent criminals and gangs roam freely through the nation’s capital — even in neighborhoods housing top government officials. Federalizing control over D.C. law enforcement and deploying the National Guard makes sense. But the deeper rot isn’t a lack of police presence. It’s the collapse of deterrence through weak sentencing and a revolving door for repeat offenders, especially juveniles.
If Trump truly wants to make Washington safe — and follow El Salvador’s tough-on-crime model — he must break from the “criminal justice reform” movement he once embraced. Those same policies have turned D.C. into a carjacker’s paradise.
The bipartisan experiment with leniency has failed. The bipartisan demand for safety is loud and clear.
No cherry-picked statistics can hide the reality: Lawmakers, staffers, and high-ranking officials fear walking around parts of the city, including Capitol Hill, even during the day. The recent attack on DOGE official Edward Coristine by a pack of 10 juveniles attempting to steal a woman’s car says everything. In 2023, D.C.’s carjacking rate hit 142.8 per 100,000 people, up 565% since 2019. Juveniles committed 63% of those crimes, with guns involved in more than three-quarters of cases.
The crime wave wasn’t random. In 2018, the D.C. Council passed the Youth Rehabilitation Act Amendment, allowing most offenders under 25 to get reduced sentences and sealed records. Repeat armed carjackers face little risk of long-term prison time. Even FBI agents have been victims. Mayor Muriel Bowser admitted some juvenile carjackers have six or seven priors — and still walk free.
Other “reform” laws stacked the deck. The Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act allowed resentencing for crimes committed before age 18. The Second Look Amendment of 2020 expanded that leniency to criminals sentenced before the age of 25 — prime time for violent crime. These measures all but erased the deterrent effect of sentencing.
And this isn’t just a problem for left-wing dystopian cities and states. Republican lawmakers in red states have pushed softer juvenile laws, too. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had to veto several leniency bills. He remains one of the few willing to confront the bipartisan jailbreak agenda.
Over the past decade, leaders in both parties have embraced the “decarceration” canard. They’ve reduced sentences, ignored parole violations, and wiped criminal records — all in the name of shrinking prison populations.
The result? Predictable chaos.
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President Reagan’s Task Force on Victims of Crime saw it coming four decades ago: “Juveniles too often are not held accountable for their conduct, and the system perpetuates this lack of accountability.”
Trump himself backed the First Step Act, which released dangerous offenders early. One of them — Glynn Neal, with a long record of violent crime — walked free just one day before stabbing a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).
Troops on the street can help. But this is more than a policing problem — it’s a policy problem. Trump’s second term should reject the leniency consensus and restore deterrence, starting with nullifying D.C.’s soft-on-crime laws.
If he wants to win the public’s trust on crime, he must trade “criminal justice reform” for criminal justice enforcement. The bipartisan experiment with leniency has failed. The bipartisan demand for safety is loud and clear.
The New York Post last week chided President Trump for not “getting it right” on deportations. But its real target wasn’t Trump. It was Stephen Miller, the president’s longtime immigration adviser and current White House deputy chief of staff. The Post’s editorial board warned that Miller’s plan to apprehend 3,000 illegal aliens per day is “asking for trouble.”
The Post argued the number is unrealistic. Even if Immigration and Customs Enforcement focuses on “the worst of the worst,” the roundup will still trigger media-fueled hysteria and nationwide riots. Mass arrests, it claimed, carry the “highest risk public-opinion-wise.”
If we concede to street violence, we let the enemy set the terms. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.
The Post envisioned a wave of anti-ICE demonstrations, media pearl-clutching, and chaos. It feared ICE would be stretched too thin trying to hit its daily targets. Worse still, agents might apprehend illegal immigrants who entered before Biden — or even before Obama — and have “put down some roots.” That, we’re told, would create “economic problems,” particularly for agriculture.
The solution? The Post recommended a “scalpel, not a hammer.” Encourage illegal immigrants to self-deport. Offer incentives. Go soft. Supposedly, a million have already left on their own. And if Trump continues gently urging them out, the paper claims, many more will go peacefully.
The problem? We don’t even know if that number is real. The Department of Homeland Security doesn’t systematically track self-deportations. It’s possible some of the exits happened during the Trump years or even before. Regardless, they’ve hardly made a dent in the 11 million people Homeland Security says are here illegally.
But more troubling than the questionable data is the message Trump would send if he adopted the Post’s approach: that he’s willing to pull back on deportations — not because it’s the right policy, but because it might provoke the left. It would mean ICE can’t arrest even violent felons if it risks upsetting the street mobs funded by Democrats. And because the left treats all illegal immigrants as future voters, that would effectively shut down enforcement altogether.
As a historian, I’ll offer a provocative but fitting comparison: Today’s leftist thugs resemble the Nazi brownshirts of the Weimar era. Back then, many thought the nationalists could harness the street violence for political gain. They were wrong. The brownshirts brought chaos, not order. I see nothing morally or politically superior about the rioters in Los Angeles. They may call themselves anti-fascists. But their behavior — and their impact — is the same.
Those who excuse or encourage this violence, or who blame the government for trying to remove violent criminals, don’t care about law and order. They don’t care about stopping murderers, rapists, or cartel operatives. They care about power.
If some illegal immigrants have lived here for years and become productive members of society, the government can evaluate those cases once the criminals are gone. Prioritizing felons doesn’t mean abandoning discretion. But it does mean enforcing the law — despite the noise.
Trump’s crackdown will also encourage more self-deportation. If illegal immigrants know there’s a new sheriff in town, they’ll think twice about staying. As for the rioters and their wealthy enablers? Perhaps, we could find a way to help them self-deport to Antarctica. At a minimum, they deserve the same accommodations the left gave to January 6 protesters.
Even if Miller’s 3,000-a-day goal can’t be fully met, the effort matters. Laura Ingraham is right: We won’t deport all of the Democrats’ future voters. But that’s no reason not to try. The street violence and intimidation are designed to cow Republicans into submission. They’re a threat — not just to policy but to republican government itself.
If we concede to street violence, we let the enemy set the terms. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.
No more accommodation. Crush the coup.
The South Side of Chicago is becoming overrun with Venezuelan migrants, including members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang, according to locals.
Members of the Chicago-based street patrol and violence prevention program Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change recently warned the New York Post that the city will “go up in flames” when local gangs and Tren de Aragua clash.
'Democrats are selling us down the river.'
Tyrone Muhammad, ECCSC founder and CEO, is a former gang member who spent two decades in prison for murder, the Post reported. Now, Muhammad is a social change advocate who has “taught self-development programs aimed at reducing recidivism, such as behavior modification, social and emotional training, critical thinking, job interviewing skills, budgeting, financing, and resume writing,” according to his organization’s website.
Muhammad, 53, recently told the Post, “It is impossible to release gang members and criminals into our country through the borders and broken walls and infiltrate them in our community that’s already impoverished and broken.”
He also warned, “When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or noncitizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames, and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets. It’ll be blacks against migrants."
Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal organization, has rapidly expanded its presence in the U.S. in recent years, including reportedly taking over some apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado, Blaze News previously reported.
Sources told the Post that Tren de Aragua members residing in the Chicago area are armed and brazen. The South Side neighborhood has been home to many gangs, including Gangster Disciples, Black P Stones, Vice Lords, Latin Kings, and Satan Disciples. With TDA spilling into the area as well, some are concerned about potential growing conflict.
Many Venezuelan migrants, including gang members, have been residing at the Standard Club shelter in downtown Chicago. The shelter’s employees told the Post that there has not been any criminal activity at the property and insisted that TDA members are not living there.
However, Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by Muhammad and Terry Newsome, a Chicago activist, revealed 720 police incident reports concerning sex trafficking, child pornography, drugs, carjackings, weapons, and spousal violence at the location over the last 12 months, the Post reported.
'They be moving in our own territory and robbing people, but they don’t get arrested like we do.'
South Side residents, including gang members, told the paper they are angry and frustrated with the city for its handling of the new immigrant arrivals.
David, a Gangster Disciples member, stated, “The real issue is that America has allowed gangs to enter our country.”
“Gangs that they would consider ex-terrorist groups. They let terrorist groups into our country!” he shouted.
Zacc Massie — whom the Post described as a street leader who recently got out of prison — said, “There’s been a lot going on with [the migrant gangs] that nobody’s even hearing about.”
“They be moving in our own territory and robbing people, but they don’t get arrested like we do," Massie remarked. "I actually talked to one on the translator app. He told me all the things he got going on; how they helped him get a car, an apartment, [EBT] card, all this stuff. They giving them thousands, we get maybe $400 a month. And they don’t even have Social Security numbers!”
Corey Rogers, a Black P Stone member, added to the Post, “What bothers me is that the Venezuelans are united.”
“The black gangs are too divided, and they take each other down,” Rogers explained.
Muhammad formed Ex-Cons for Trump after he felt Democrats had failed inner-city residents.
“It’s not so much Trump himself; it’s that the Democrats are selling us down the river,” he told the Post. “The bougie [upwardly mobile] blacks might like Kamala Harris, but she isn’t going to do anything for us.”
Rev. Corey Brooks echoed similar sentiments to the paper about failed Democratic policies: “Chicago is a blue city and Illinois is a blue state, but people are starting to wake up. It’s not about the person; it’s about the policies. I’ve seen what’s happening with my own eyes when it comes to the migrant criminal gangs, and it’s very concerning.”
The Chicago mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Post.
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