Video shows the impact of Trump’s crime in Washington

Residents in Washington, D.C. own one of the city’s largest Latino populations said they have seen a surge in immigration attacks since the Trump administration launched a criminal crackdown.

“People are walking around,” said a resident who wanted to remain anonymous. “I’ve never seen such an empty street.”

Videos posted on social media last week showed arrests and raids in the Columbia Highlands and protests by locals.

According to the White House, more than 1,000 arrests have been made in the U.S. capital since the crackdown began on August 11, nearly half of the suspected illegal immigrants.

BBC Verify reviewed more than a dozen videos shot in Columbia Heights and spoke with people living there to assess the impact on the community.

A video of two men caught by law enforcement officers is Posted on Instagram By local reporters on Thursday morning.

In the video, you can see the numbers on a unique building. We used it to point the location to a road in the Columbia Heights – about two miles north of the White House – head there to learn more about what’s going on.

We met a woman who witnessed the incident. She said she didn’t know the two men, but showed us several videos she shot, including one of them living on Facebook at 07:39 am that morning.

It shows two men wearing red cars surrounded by a group of nine officers – some with “police federal officers” on their vests and some with masks.

The officer then smashed two car windows and dragged them out, forcing one of them to the ground, and then handcuffed him.

Both walked to an unmarked car and were driven away, and the woman photographed in Spanish was fighting for her life… They broke the window and didn’t go out, don’t go out. ”

Several other onlookers could be heard chanting “Ice Home” and another shouting “You should be so ashamed.” Someone named one of them “Eric Lopez”.

When we arrived we saw the car being towed by a man who gave us a man who said he knew the man who was arrested.

We contacted this person and he texted the men that were from the United States, illegal Guatemala, and one person had a wife and son. He called them “good kids” and claimed they “have no bad records on anything”.

BBC verification requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for more details.

An ice sheet agent “arrestled Erickson Sebastian Lopez-Castanon, an illegal alien in the car”, a spokesman said.

They added: “The goal of this operation is Darwin Arahely Lopez-Castanon, an illegal alien who committed the crime and was charged with felony domestic violence. The criminal illegal alien from Guatemala was previously deported twice before he entered the country illegally for the third time.”

They said officials used “the minimum necessary force.”

The woman who shot the video wanted to remain anonymous but invited us into her home nearby. She said her family was originally from Central America but is now a legal citizen of the United States.

Her daughter also wants to remain anonymous, claiming that most Latino people in the region have not been documented and have become increasingly anxious over the past two weeks.

“I was born and raised in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “My parents were lucky to have documents…but I kept thinking, where are they going next? Even if we have documents?”

“Even people with documents hide because of fear.”

She told us that the house opposite her uncle was targeted by federal agents last week.

“I walked out and saw a bunch of policemen outside the house. They were knocking on the door and asking my uncle to open the door, they didn’t say who they were looking for. They didn’t show any documents.”

“We called my uncle and I was thinking, don’t open the door… About 20, 30 minutes later, they finally left. But they were scared.”

Uncle joined us and showed us his documents, saying he waved through the window to the agents to prove he was legally in the United States.

He said federal authorities are also patrolling local parks and people play football.

He said the number of people participating in the competition has dropped from about 50 to about 15, as many people have no documents and are afraid of being detained.

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

Several videos also showed officers from another property on Sunday night, as well as local police.

Locals can be heard shouting “get out of our neighborhood.”

We positioned the video to a street two blocks away.

A photographer who gave us a video said he asked the officer why he was there, and one told him it was due to a “case of exploitation.”

The FBI will not confirm this, but told the BBC Verification: “The FBI Washington Field Office conducted a court-authorized law enforcement activity at the site on Sunday, August 24.”

Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said in May that he set a goal of “at least 3,000 people arresting ice every day” – the administration is trying to fulfill the president’s campaign promise “the largest mass deportation in history.”

“When you look at the type of arrested person [in Washington DC] It seems they are just trying to fill the deportation quota,” said immigration attorney Austin Rose.

He believes many people will try to claim asylum in the United States, so authorities have known that it will make it easier for them to track them.

Overall, the BBC verified 15 videos of incidents involving federal officials in Columbia Heights.

As of August 26, there were a total of 169 crimes in the local area around the streets we visited this year. DC Metropolitan Police Department Crime map.

There are some serious crimes in the wider Columbia Heights – Including suspicious shootings earlier this year.

All ten people we talked to on the street said they felt safe there before the crime crackdown.

“I brought my mom here and she was like, this place felt more like a community than a place we used to live… but since the crackdown, it felt less like a community, more like a police state.”

“I walked out to work at 06:50 in the morning and saw two men arresting a man in the car. They were around him, nailing him, and handcuffing. I stopped and the guy looked at me and shook his head,” she said.

Another resident who has lived in the area for three years said the streets have become quieter in recent weeks.

“Usually, when I walk out of the gym in the morning, there are usually a lot of Latino vendors on the sidewalk…but today I’m home and no one actually sets off.”

We asked the DHS how many people were arrested in Columbia Heights and if the area was arrested.

“We will support the re-establishment of law, order, and public safety so that Americans can feel safe in the capital of our country,” a spokesperson said.