D.C. mayor seeks repeal of sanctuary city law
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Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled her budget on Tuesday. Photo: Lenin Nolly for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Mayor Muriel Bowser is seeking to quietly overturn D.C.'s sanctuary city law, proposing to remove the ban on local police assisting with deportations.
Why it matters: Bowser has retreated from championing the nation's capital as a sanctuary city just as the Trump administration moves to ramp up ICE arrests.
Driving the news: Bowser wants to repeal a law that prevents local police from cooperating with ICE to detain undocumented immigrants.
- The law prohibits D.C. from inquiring about a detained person's immigration status or releasing them to ICE.
- It also prevents D.C. from allowing ICE to interview a suspect in local custody without a judicial order.
The intrigue: The mayor is asking for the repeal without fanfare, via a tucked-away provision as part of her newly released 2026 budget proposal, first spotted by journalist Martin Austermuhle.
- Bowser's office didn't immediately return Axios' request for comment.
Friction point: The D.C. Council has final say over what makes it into the budget, and some progressive members may thwart Bowser's push.
The big picture: White House officials are pressuring ICE to dial up deportations, Axios' Brittany Gibson and Stef W. Kight report:
- In a tense meeting last week, top Trump aide Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people a day, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.
- The new target is triple the number of daily arrests that agents were making in the early days of Trump's term.
Catch up fast: Federal agents arrested 189 people in D.C. earlier this month. It's part of Trump's multi-agency immigration crackdown in the Washington area.
- ICE officers also visited several D.C. restaurants in early May demanding to see employment eligibility papers.
In March, Bowser took down a District government webpage that championed D.C. as a "sanctuary city," part of a pattern of muted rhetoric against Trump.