Trump says homeless people must “move out” of Washington DC, promising relocation far from the capital alongside crime reduction measures.
Trump says homeless people must “move out” of Washington DC, promising relocation far from the capital alongside crime reduction measures.
US President Donald Trump has ordered that homeless people “move out” of Washington DC, pledging to make the capital “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before,” a move that has drawn sharp criticism from the city’s mayor.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, the Republican president said: “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.” Alongside photos of tents and rubbish, he added: “There will be no ‘MR. NICE GUY.’ We want our Capital BACK.”
Trump announced he would hold a news conference at the White House on Monday to outline plans to curb violent crime and “physically renovate” the city. The order follows his directive last month making it easier to arrest homeless individuals, and his deployment of federal law enforcement into DC streets last week.
According to a White House official, up to 450 federal officers — from agencies including the US Park Police, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and US Marshals Service — were deployed over the weekend to address what Trump has called “totally out of control” crime levels.
The president’s comments came days after a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency was assaulted in an alleged attempted carjacking in the capital, an incident Trump highlighted on social media.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, rejected Trump’s characterisation of Washington DC and the remarks of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who described the city as “more violent than Baghdad.”
“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023,” Bowser told MSNBC. “We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city, driving it down to a 30-year low.”
Bowser insisted there was no current crime surge, pointing to federal data showing DC recorded its lowest overall violent crime rate in three decades last year. However, the city’s homicide rate remains high per capita, with 98 killings reported so far this year.
Community Partnership, an organisation focused on reducing homelessness, said the city’s 700,000 residents include about 3,782 homeless people on any given night, with roughly 800 living on the streets.
Trump has previously suggested moving homeless people to “high quality” tents on inexpensive land outside cities, equipped with bathrooms and medical services.
As a federal district rather than a state, Washington DC is overseen in part by the federal government, which controls land and buildings in the capital. While Trump has threatened to take over the DC Metropolitan Police Department, Bowser countered that “none of those conditions exist” in local law to grant him such authority.
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