Safety in the City: Examining Federal Enforcement and Community Perceptions in Washington, D.C.

In this thesis, I analyze how residents in Washington, D.C. interpret safety during the 2025 deployment of the National Guard and the expansion of ICE presence in the city. I argue that, in the fact of federal intervention, safety encompasses more than reduced crime rates. Drawing on qualitative interviews with residents in Wards 1, 7, and 8, I show how community contexts of safety shaped the perception of the deployments. For some residents, the National Guard was seen as a form of protection from violence and crime, albeit an imperfect one. For others, the visibility of ICE made the intervention into a source of fear and vulnerability. These priorities of safety are strongly rooted in the histories of policing, investment, and culture of these local communities. Overall, I describe how overlapping forms of federal authority reshape what aspects of security are prioritized and argue for the need of community-oriented policing, separation of immigration enforcement from criminal policing, and autonomy in D.C.