Federal authorities began sweeping homeless encampments in northwestern Washington on Thursday night as part of President Trump’s sprawling takeover of the city’s law enforcement apparatus, after city officials and advocates spent much of the day urging unhoused people to go to shelters or risk arrest.
A federal operation that had been expected to start at 6:30 p.m. seemed to only get underway after dark. At around 9 p.m., federal agents from the F.B.I. and U.S. Secret Service arrived at Washington Circle in the Foggy Bottom area to remove a few tents where homeless people have long stayed, according to Wes Heppler of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. They retreated after a woman presented a city notice saying she had until Monday to leave.
“We were told that there would be a list of sites that would receive closure activity from the National Park Service and other law enforcement officials, and we would support that effort by providing a connection to homeless services for those who are adversely impacted,” Wayne Turnage, D.C.’s deputy mayor for health and human services, told reporters at the site of the clearing at Washington Circle.
As the night unfolded and the city braced for raids, it was unclear how widespread or effective the raids were, with federal agents showing up in groups at sites and confronting the small numbers of homeless people they encountered.
Charles Allen, a member of the D.C. council, said city officials had explained to the council that the operation would target about 25 sites in the city’s northwest quadrant, starting around 6:30 p.m. Otherwise, he said, “it is very unclear to us” what the operation entailed and that no one from the White House had reached out.
“The District has worked proactively with homeless residents ahead these actions to provide services and offers of shelter,” read a statement from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services. “DC will support the engagements with wraparound services and trash pickup, but the planned engagements are otherwise the purview of the federal agencies.”
There were signs that the show of force might run into some obstacles. At Washington Square, Meghann Abraham, 34, who has been living outside in the area since March, presented agents with a notice that the city gave her earlier in the day, giving her until Monday to clear out. The agents discussed the matter among themselves and then left soon after.
Earlier, a little after 6 p.m., city police arrived at an area outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, where homeless people often spend the night. Most of the homeless had already departed when police arrived, leaving behind belongings in piles on the sidewalk.
Local police referred inquiries about the operation to the White House. In a briefing on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that police would be clearing encampments in D.C. under “laws that are already on the books.”
There was widespread uncertainty about the scope of the sweeps on Thursday, even as there was little surprise that they were coming. In announcing that he was federalizing the D.C. police force on Monday and deploying hundreds of federal agents and National Guard soldiers, Mr. Trump had said the city was being taken over by “drugged out maniacs and homeless people,” despite falling crime rates. In an executive order in March he had demanded the “prompt removal and cleanup of all homeless or vagrant encampments.” The White House says that scores of homeless encampments have been cleared since that order.
Many, but not all, of the encampments are on parks, traffic circles and medians in D.C. that are federal government property.
While the president said that the authorities would give homeless people “places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Ms. Leavitt, said that their options would be “to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services, and, if they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”
It was unclear what the charges would be for any arrests. The city’s locally elected attorney general posted legal guidance for people living in homeless encampments who may be confronted by law enforcement.
The city has not been able to expand mental health capacity, in part because of $1.1 billion that Congress prevented D.C. from accessing in the budget this year, Mr. Allen, the councilman, said.
The city set up about 60 extra shelter beds last week, Mr. Turnage said. Thirty beds were still open, he said, adding that “capacity is not an issue.”
But Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center, a legal advocacy group, said there are not nearly enough beds to take in the hundreds of people living outside in D.C. “There’s nowhere for people to go,” he said.
He also pointed out, echoing Mr. Allen, that “the federal government has not supplied any additional shelter beds.”
Mr. Turnage, who had said in an interview earlier on WUSA9, the local CBS affiliate, that the Trump administration wants to “finish the encampment part of this process in a week or so,” said on Thursday night that federal protocol was very different than the district’s.
The city does not conduct encampment closures at night, he said. But, he said the city is in a support role and will connect homeless people with services, try to collect belongings and clean up after the clearing.
“We’ve never had the F.B.I. involved,” he said. “It’s never been a federal operation. It’s always been district government. We will do what we can to help them.”
Chris Cameron and Darren Sands contributed reporting from Washington. Ashley Ahn contributed from New York.
Campbell Robertson reports for The Times on Delaware, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice. He is from upstate New York.
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