Washington-in a cutting film in an addition to a primary school in the neighborhood of Glover Park last Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser was all smiles. She saw the students make a “OZ” musical scene, then spent several minutes talking about the benefits of investing in schools and excited to return to the classroom.
But minutes after taking photos with school leaders and local officials, he entered the building gym, where he was dragged to his own tornado, facing journalists about a much more difficult issue: the impacts of President Donald Trump’s attempt to take care of the city. The 14 questions that Bowser presented himself on Trump’s executive order, which includes:
- “There has been a video of ice arrests that extend through social networks … What is your reaction when you watch these videos in the city?”
- “Can you tell us how you feel about the additional troops of the National Guard that come from other states … Do you feel that this has usurped your authority even more?”
- “How do you reflect on this moment? It seems that your possible concerns about this administration are beginning to be done?”
Despite Bowser’s attempt to project normality before the first day for public schools on Monday, the beginning of the school year will be anything but business as usual. Federal agents have established control points at several intersections throughout the city. They have carried out immigration application actions, with food delivery conductors beaten on the ground and arrested by masked agents of the Department of National Security in broad daylight. The soldiers of the National Guard in Army Fatigue have taken positions outside the national games and in the metropolitan stops.
The White House says there are more than 2,000 agents, officers and soldiers involved in the operation, and more than 900 arrests have been made.
While the chief of immigration and customs application told NBC News last week that the agents would not be in DC schools the first day, they could enter the campus in the future.
As mayor, Bowser is the highest rank official in the DC government. But since Trump issued an executive order that declared an emergency to restore the “law and order” in the capital of the nation, its limited power has become more evident, which reflects the lack of autonomy of the city, since it is not a state. She wants national security investigations agents to stop covering their faces to avoid identification during compliance operations. She does not believe that the presence of the National Guard is necessary and wants to leave them. But all you can do is ask.
Then he focuses on the things he can control.
“Monday is my favorite day of the year,” Bowser told a room full of educators at Phelps Ace High School in the Northeast of Washington on Wednesday.
There are more than 52,000 students in the 117 public schools of DC.
Even with the city to the limit, Bowser told educators to avoid the elephant in the room when the bell rings on Monday.
“I want everyone to know who labor policy is in this room,” Bowser said. “Who is the work? It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s mine. I’m the only one. It’s not yours. Okay?”
She told the teachers that “they trust that I am going to do the right thing for all of us.”
But that is not reassuring for parents, who are dealing with how to do the right thing for their children.
Alicia Swenson has four children in DC schools, and she and her husband planned to let her children of sixth and seventh grade travel to school in the meter themselves. Now, however, Swenson said that she and her husband should escort her children to her school in the northwest of DC because the National Guard is bothered to her youngest daughter.
The last time he saw a great presence of application of the law in DC was during the Racial Justice protests of 2020, Swenson said. This time, however, it is more difficult to explain to their children.
“At that time, I think we said: ‘There are peaceful protests, and that is the right of people. It’s good to stand up when you see something wrong,” Swenson said during a Friday interview. “But this? I have no idea what to say. It is very difficult for us to explain what is happening at this time.”
In an event back to school in the West End neighborhood on Friday, Mother Melissa Neil said that while the increase in the National Guard can be “understandable”, it was also “a bit worrying.” Neil is a citizen but emigrated from the Dominican Republic, and pointed out that even if someone is a citizen, “you still look like immigrant.”
“You never really know what the standards are,” Neil said. “Even if you have your documentation, you can still identify it as it is not. Therefore, it is worrying that you are with your children, and they can get it.”
Almost every day, a video goes viral from the actions of application of immigration in the streets of Washington, after the Department of Justice ordered Bowser to order the City Police Department to help in immigration application operations and that comply with the database consultations and information requests from any federal entity of application of the law.
In the same event back to school, Louis Limes said he has “mixed emotions” about sending his daughters back to school amid the increase of the National Guard and federal agents.
“If they are here for the safety of our children, great, but since recent days, we have seen that they reviewed their limits in protecting and serving the streets, harassing, physically abusing citizens,” Limes said.
Itzetht Testa was buying with her children in Columbia Heights on Thursday, and said that although she served 25 years in the Air Force, she did not agree with the National Guard in the streets of the city. She voted for Trump, but disapproves so much her first months that she says she will never vote for a Republican. Now, he said his seventh grade son felt threatened to see the National Guard.
“If they are using it for immigration purposes, I don’t care about that,” he said about the National Guard near schools. “It shouldn’t be used for that.”
“I will always vote independent from now on,” added Testa.
While DC residents shouted, they made fun and protested against federal agents and the National Guard in their neighborhoods in the last 14 days, when students arrive at the gates of their schools on Monday, Bowser said Wednesday in the demonstration of Phelps that parents, neighbors and friends “applaud them”, to show that the city is encouraging.
“We are all going to stand with them,” Bowser said.
