Now, first, this may be the largest blog post title ever. I understand that. But I am not planning on retyping it in its correct place. Sorry about that.

Okay, back to our story.

While everyone knows that DC has a crime problem, everyone also knows that every big city has a crime problem. But everyone should also realize that crime in DC is primarily concentrated in certain areas of the city. For example, in Ward 3, where we live, violent crime is virtually nonexistent. And, although the White House (and maybe right wing media) refuses to admit it, violent crime has been going down city-wide. Furthermore, according to ChatGPT, the DC metropolitan area’s overall crime rate puts it in the bottom 25% of US large metropolitan areas.

Donald Trump was able to win the 2024 presidential race because he was able to politicize immigration as a threat to American security. There were plenty of reasons to oppose the Biden border policies, but security (i.e., fear that immigrants were committing crimes) should have been way down the list. Statistics showed that recent immigrants (for reasons that should be pretty obvious) were less likely to commit crimes, but that didn’t matter. Since Trump views honesty as a weakness, not a virtue, he was able to concentrate on a few tragic incidents, repeat them over and over, and convince the gullible that people were crossing the border for the sole purpose of terrorizing the country.

He is now working on the 2026 midterms. He has ICE and other federal agencies engaged in their own terrorizing activities as they go after foreign-born people and unceremoniously try to send them to Venezuela, Uganda, and South Sudan. To him, this is a continuation of his 2024 narrative about immigrants and crime, and he expects it will be politically successful.

His anti-immigrant push is the focus of his “anti-crime” activity in DC. If you come from a Spanish speaking country, it does not matter if you snuck into the country and escaped detection, if you came into the country legally and are claiming asylum, if you are here on a valid visa (expired or not), if you are have a student visa or a tourist visa, if you are in the process of applying for citizenship, if you were brought into the country when you were a child or an infant, if you are married to a citizen, if you are 90 years old and have been here 75 years, if you work hard and pay your taxes, if you have served in the US military, and sometimes even if you are an actual bona fide US citizen. You are at risk of being scooped up off the streets and sent to a distant site where you will be held incommunicado. This is the reality of America today.

As you would imagine, there are many neighborhoods in the city with high levels of Hispanic populations. Over 10% of DC is Hispanic. People are afraid to go to work, afraid to go to the grocery store, afraid to walk their children to school. Neighbors have gone into action, aided by immigrants support groups. Some non-Hispanics shop for their neighbors. Other walk their neighbors’ children to and from school. And so on. They are well organized. And this is America today. Anyone from a Hispanic country is now a political pawn of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

In the meantime, the city is being economically strangled. Trump does not care. We vote against him, so we are expendable.

The National Guard serve no practical purpose  except to pick up trash. The increase in arrests is largely related to ICE enforcement. Crime appears to be down a bit, but crime is always low in non-democratic countries. And as Trump himself has said (I paraphrase): if a dictator brings down crime, maybe people prefer a dictator.

Enough said. Have a good Labor Day (those who celebrate). What’s this holiday about, anyway?