Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons said his federal agents will not visit Washington, D.C.-area schools on the first day of classes on Monday, but he made no promises after that.
“Day one, you’re not going to see us,” Lyons told NBC News in an interview on Thursday.
But welfare checks on students who might be unaccompanied minors or in an “exigent circumstance” could lead to ICE agents showing up at Washington schools throughout the school year.
“We want to use our special agents and our officers to go ahead and locate these individuals. And if [there are] some we haven’t and the last known address was at a school, we just want to make sure that child is safe,” Lyons said. “If we have the opportunity to reunite that parent with that child, that’s what we want to do.”
He added, “If it’s an exigent circumstance, something violent going on, yeah, we’ll respond to that.”
President Donald Trump last week federalized the Washington, D.C., police department and called in the National Guard to help tamp down surging crime in the district. He told Newsmax on Thursday, “It’s working unbelievably, much faster than we thought.”
That was backed up by Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday.
“719 arrests and 91 illegal guns seized in Washington, DC,” Bondi wrote on X, citing the most recent statistics. “Just yesterday we made 40 arrests, took 5 more illegal firearms off our streets, and had 36 ICE arrests—including a suspected MS-13 gang member.”
The U.S. Marshals Service told ABC7 News on Thursday that six of those were homicide arrests.
“As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social early Friday morning. “Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total Federal takeover of the City!”
Trump’s Justice Department is reportedly investigating Washington’s reporting of crime statistics. Bowser boasted that violent crime was at its lowest point in 30 years, figures that experts said were dubious.
Research published this week, however, showed Washington’s homicide rate was 523% higher than the average state and violent crime was 220% above the national average.
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