Small groups of federal agents gathered throughout Washington, DC, on Thursday night to clear out homeless encampments as part of President Donald Trump’s takeover of law enforcement in the nation’s capital.
In Washington Circle – an area in southwest DC close to George Washington University – confusion quickly developed when several agents showed up after dark.
“It was kind of a melee of (DC police), Secret Service, Customs and Border Patrol and the FBI,” Jesse Rabinowitz, the campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, told CNN.
CNN did not observe agents removing tents at the Washington Circle site.
DC officials and homeless advocates were waiting for expected federal law enforcement action – and there were notices posted on tents in the circle giving the homeless occupants until Monday to clear out, creating some confusion among the federal agents who didn’t seem to know about the Monday extension.
CNN observed the notices from the DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, which gave occupants until 10 a.m. on Monday to leave.
Lawyers from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless intervened with the agents and pointed to the notice, according to Rabinowitz. After “an extended back and forth,” the federal agents left the scene, he said.
“This is exactly what happens when you have a federal government take over a city they know nothing about and not care anything about,” he said.
Homeless advocates had been bracing for the worst earlier this week, lobbying city officials to open up more shelter beds and mulling potential lawsuits in anticipation of federal officials’ stepped-up efforts to move the homeless out.
Meghann Abraham, whose tent is in Washington Circle, told reporters that she would peacefully pack up her things if she was told to, and that she wasn’t scared, because she felt she wasn’t doing anything wrong.
“A lot of people want to paint us as disgusting or criminals, and all of that stuff. Or they want to do it, like a charity case, like ‘oh, the poor thing,’” she said to CNN-affiliate WJLA. “We’re just people. We’re normal people out here working, trying to do well and things like this – to pack up every belonging I have and move to someplace else. That’s a stress that shouldn’t exist, but it is.”
A major sweep took place earlier Thursday morning at an encampment near a highway close to the vaunted Lincoln Memorial and Kennedy Center, where Trump’s motorcade often passes through. Last week, he posted photos of the encampment on social media.
Trump, who announced aggressive new moves this week to federalize the local police force and deploy National Guard troops in the city, has also declared that homeless people “have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” and added, “we will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”
Kierstin Quinsland, spokesperson for Miriam’s Kitchen in DC, told CNN earlier Thursday that they were aware that encampments throughout the city would begin to be cleared out that night, but the federal government hadn’t shared a plan with outreach groups.
“This is definitely unprecedented,” she said, describing the scale of the planned clear outs.
Some of the people who could be forcibly moved earlier in the day had been matched to housing programs, but because it takes a few months for things to get set in place, Queensland said she’s worried about people losing their chance because they’re going to be cut off from their support system.
“I think the problem that it solves is that people in the administration, including Donald Trump, don’t want to see the fact that there are homeless individuals living outside, and whether they are in Virginia, in Maryland, or in a neighborhood that Donald Trump doesn’t drive through, people will still be experiencing homelessness,” she added.
CNN’s Allie Gorden contributed to this report.
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