One Year of Occupation
It has been one year since the National Guard were deployed on our streets and DC became an occupied city.
Since August 2025, over 20,000 of our neighbors in this region have been arrested by ICE. DC has the highest rate in the nation of children separated from their immigrant parents. DC has always been an over-policed city and this newest iteration of fascism is projected to cost 1.4 billion dollars through 2029.
A project designed to terrorize our neighbors, paid for with our tax dollars.
This is not the first administration to deploy federal agencies to stoke fear in DC. Racial profiling and dog whistle justifications of “cleaning up the city” is nothing new for Black and Brown communities who have been the decades long targets of over-policing.
The entire goal of this deployment was to get us to stay inside, disconnect, and live in fear. They wanted us to give in and turn on our neighbors. But they always forget there is Washington & there is DC. And us?
WE ARE DC. And we will ALWAYS keep our neighbors safe.
At DCAF, we created a Tips for Safe Travel to DC Guide for our out-of-city callers, dropped a line of special edition ICE OUT merch to make our resistance loud and proud, threw a My Body My Festival that was bigger and better than ever and still funded over 3,000 abortions.
We asked our DCAF Universe to reflect on the past year living under increased federal occupation. The following voice notes offer a glimpse into the reality of Washingtonians. Our hope is that everyone, from all 50 states, join us in our movement to demand Statehood and push for the DC we deserve.
