By TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has portrayed his federal law enforcement surge in Washington as focused on tackling crime. But data from the federal operation, analyzed by The Associated Press, shows that more than 40% of the arrests made over the monthlong operation were in fact related to immigration.

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The finding highlights that in the nation’s capital, the administration continued to advance its hardline immigration agenda.

The Trump administration has claimed success in the federal takeover in D.C., saying it has led to more than 2,300 arrests, including more than a dozen homicide suspects, 20 alleged gang members and hundreds of people accused of drug and gun crimes. More than 220 illegal guns have been taken off the street, including in one case from a teen who made a concerning social media post about a school, officials said.

Yet the prominence of immigration arrests — more than 940 people — has fueled criticism that the true purpose of the operation may have been to expand deportations. For critics, the effort appears less a one-off push against crime in the capital than a model for federal intervention and the highlighting of violent crime in other cities led by Democratic mayors, a familiar political playbook that Trump leaned on during the 2020 campaign.

Already, officials in Chicago, long a foil for the administration’s law-and-order rhetoric, were bracing for an influx of immigration agents and possibly National Guard troops. Trump himself fanned speculation over the weekend, posting on social media a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” with helicopters looming over Chicago and the caption: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

Unclear how many faced non-immigration charges

The administration has repeatedly argued that deportations are inseparable from crime reduction, often casting those arrested by immigration authorities as the “worst of the worst.” Still, it remains unclear how many of those taken into custody in Washington had any other charges pending.

In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said many had prior arrests, convictions or outstanding warrants for crimes like assault, drug possession and child sexual abuse, without specifying a number.

“Law enforcement is doing an outstanding job removing these threats from D.C. communities – the focus of this operation has been stopping violent crime committed by anyone, regardless of their immigration status,” Jackson said in an email.

Internal law enforcement reports obtained by the AP provide a partial picture. Over 10 days sampled during the surge, about 22 percent of those arrested on immigration violations had criminal records, including for driving while intoxicated, drug possession, grand larceny and burglary. That sample makes up a third of the entire period. Figures for other days were not immediately available.

Trump’s D.C. operation was launched to address a “crime emergency.”

Emergency order is set to expire

On Aug. 11, Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city’s police force. That order is set to expire overnight Wednesday. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard, which remains in the city along with other federal agents.

While immigration enforcement agents have been part of the operation since the beginning, Trump has put an emphasis on wanting to address the city’s crime rates, which figures show slowed during the federal law enforcement surge but were already falling before it. Congress let the emergency order expire on Wednesday but National Guard troops are expected to remain deployed in the city.

Just a few days after the president declared a crime emergency, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered city officials to revoke the district’s “sanctuary policies,” signaling the administration’s efforts to focus on immigration enforcement in the operation. Sanctuary policies generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers.

After a lawsuit by D.C. officials, the administration agreed to leave the city’s police chief in control of the department, but Bondi in a new memo directed police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law.

In Bondi’s order last month on “restoring safety and security” to the nation’s capital, she wrote the dangers posed by violent crime in the city are “multiplied by the District’s sanctuary city policies.” She added that the “proliferation of illegal aliens into our country during the prior Administration, including into our Nation’s capital, presents extreme public safety and national security risks to our country.”

Peer-reviewed academic studies have generally found no link between immigration and violent crime, though conclusions vary based on the data examined.

Immigrants felt the clampdown through the surge

Immigration and Customs Enforcement made immigration-related arrests in the Washington area before the operation launched. But the agency’s presence has been much more visible since the Aug. 11 launch of the operation. Activists across the city have responded, often publicizing on social media locations where ICE has been seen and sharing videos of agents arresting people.

Immigrants worried about checkpoints or arrests have furiously been sharing information across messaging apps about streets to avoid. Activists have also stepped in to deliver food to immigrants fearful of leaving their homes because they risk encountering federal officers surging into the city.

In social media posts, the Homeland Security Department has highlighted the number of people it has arrested for immigration violations as part the Trump administration’s violent crime operation in D.C. In one such post, it said staff at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection were being deployed to “help clean up the streets of our nation’s capital.”

“DHS will support the re-establishment of law and order and public safety in DC, which includes taking drug dealers, gang members, and criminal aliens off city streets,” the department said.

By BEN FINLEY

Kilmar Abrego Garcia faces an uncertain future.

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The Trump administration wants to deport him to the African nation of Eswatini. Abrego Garcia wants to apply for asylum to stay in the U.S.

Either path could begin with a long journey through the legal system.

Abrego Garcia, 30, became a flashpoint over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador. The Trump administration claimed he was a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation that Abrego Garcia denies and for which he wasn’t charged.

The administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. in June, but only to face human smuggling charges. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have called the case preposterous and vindictive.

Abrego Garcia was released from a Tennessee jail to await his trial last month. He was taken into immigration custody three days later and remains in a Virginia detention center.

Here’s a look at what could happen next:

Fears of other countries

The Trump administration has proposed sending Abrego Garcia to Eswatini because it cannot legally send him to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador around 2011 because a local gang had extorted and terrorized him and his family, according to court documents. Abrego Garcia had settled in Maryland without documentation to join his older brother, who had become a U.S. citizen.

One day in 2019, Abrego Garcia sought work as a day laborer outside a Home Depot. A confidential informant told police that Abrego Garcia and other men outside the store were in MS-13 because of their clothing and tattoos, according to court documents.

Abrego Garcia was never charged but was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He applied for asylum, but was denied because his request came more than a year after he entered the U.S.

However, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador after Abrego Garcia demonstrated that he had a well-founded fear of gang persecution there.

Six years later, in the early days of the second Trump administration, ICE deported Abrego Garcia to a notorious El Salvador prison, violating the immigration judge’s order. Following a Supreme Court order, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S., but only to face charges of human smuggling.

The Trump administration said last month that it intended to deport him to the African country of Uganda. Abrego Garcia notified the U.S. government that he fears being sent there over concerns of persecution or being sent on to El Salvador.

Last Friday, the Trump administration said it now intends to deport him to Eswatini.

A letter from ICE said his fears are “hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries.”

Trump’s immigration court

The U.S. is supposed to follow a multi-step process for deporting someone to a nation that isn’t their home country, according to immigration attorneys.

For example, an immigration officer is supposed to conduct a reasonable fear interview, during which Abrego Garcia can raise concerns about persecution and torture. If the officer disagrees, Abrego Garcia can ask an immigration judge to review the decision. From there, Abrego Garcia can go to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Immigration judges are part of the Justice Department and under the Trump administration’s authority. Trump has been firing immigration judges, many appointed by former President Joe Biden, as part of his immigration crackdown.

However, Abrego Garcia can contest a Board of Immigration Appeals decision in the federal courts, which are part of the nation’s independent judiciary.

‘You can’t win every case’

Even if Abrego Garcia thwarts deportation to Eswatini, he likely will face attempts to remove him to another country and then another, according to Memphis-based immigration attorney Andrew Rankin.

“By the law of averages, you can’t win every case,” he said.

Asylum, however, could place the focus solely back on El Salvador, where Abrego Garcia has previously shown a credible fear of gang persecution.

Abrego Garcia has filed a motion to reopen his 2019 immigration case and apply for asylum. His lawyers will likely argue he’s eligible because he’s been in the U.S. less than a year, Rankin said.

Asylum could provide a green card and a path to citizenship. But he’s taking a risk, Rankin said. If Abrego Garcia loses his bid, an immigration judge could remove his protection from being returned to El Salvador.

‘A traffic court setting’

Abrego Garcia’s motion to reopen his immigration case is still pending. If it’s denied, he can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. From there, he can go to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, left, hugs her husband Kilmar Abrego Garcia at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

If he is allowed to request asylum, he’ll get a hearing. His lawyers and the government can present evidence and call witnesses.

“A very famous saying about immigration court is ’Immigration court has death penalty consequences in a traffic court setting,” said Rankin, the attorney.

For example, immigration judges have much wider discretion on scheduling, admitting evidence and issuing judgments, Rankin said. There can be little consistency between individual immigration courts.

“In traffic court, you’re deciding a speeding ticket, which at most affects insurance purposes,” Rankin said. “Whereas in immigration court, you’re deciding in this particular case whether someone’s going to go home to die. Or if they’re going to stay in the U.S.”

Attorney general could rule

Attorney General Pam Bondi has the authority to decide Abrego Garcia’s immigration case as the head of the Justice Department, immigration experts say. Such decisions are rare, but the Trump administration has shown a willingness to break with precedent.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his Tennessee criminal case have criticized Bondi for what they say are prejudicial statements, claiming he can’t get a fair criminal trial.

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, said a hypothetical ruling from Bondi would likely be appealed to the 4th Circuit.

The smartest thing for Bondi to do, the professor said, is to “work with a good group of Justice Department lawyers who are going to explain the factual basis for your conclusion.”

Rankin, the attorney in Memphis, said Abrego Garcia’s attorneys likely would attack any decision made by Bondi to deport him as “a political hit job.”

“It would destroy any credibility that this is a prosecution for the American people and not a prosecution for Donald Trump,” Rankin said.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and ISABELLA VOLMERT, Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Before the abandoned federal attempt to prosecute Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, state and local prosecutors brought cases against his fake electors.

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The term referred to the people who, in several of the swing states won by former President Joe Biden, declared themselves to be the rightful electors who would vote for Trump in the Electoral College. It was part of Trump’s long-shot bid to push Congress to reject Biden’s electors and throw the election to him.

Democratic prosecutors filed indictments against them before Trump himself was charged by a special prosecutor appointed by Biden’s Department of Justice, making the fake electors the most prominent example of how those who helped Trump faced consequences for their attempt to reverse the election results. Many of those cases have now hit a dead end or are just limping along.

The charges against Trump were dropped after he won the election, following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting presidents immunity for much of their conduct in office. While the fake elector cases ground on, several have hit legal roadblocks — most dramatically on Tuesday when a Michigan judge dismissed charges against 15 Republicans who had been charged by that state’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel.

Judge Kristen Simmons said prosecutors had not shown that the defendants intended to defraud the public.

“Right, wrong or indifferent, it was these individuals and many other individuals in the state of Michigan who sincerely believed — for some reason — that there were some serious irregularities with the election,” said Simmons, who was originally appointed by the state’s Democratic governor and then won reelection to the bench.

President Donald Trump speaks at a hearing of the Religious Liberty Commission at the Museum of the Bible, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Fake electoral cases hit setbacks in other states

Simmons’ dismissal came after a judge in Arizona sent the fake electors case there back to the grand jury for fuller instructions about what federal law requires and a Nevada judge dismissed charges in that state, concluding they were filed in the wrong city.

Nevada’s attorney general, Democrat Aaron Ford, has refiled the charges, while Arizona’s, Democrat Kris Mayes, has appealed. In Georgia, the fake elector allegations are among the charges Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis filed against Trump and others in a case that has been put on hold as she appeals her removal for ethics reasons.

In a call with reporters on Tuesday, Nessel lamented that “it’s getting harder and harder” to get election cases across the finish line.

“And I think in large part that’s because of the fear of retaliation and the ongoing intimidation of threats our judges receive when presiding over cases in which the president has a stake,” she said.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a George State University law professor who’s followed the cases, noted that they all involved unprecedented acts that the legal system had never dealt with before.

“The bottom line is, these very 40,000-foot level cases that are brought to ‘protect democracy,’ the criminal justice system isn’t equipped to handle that,” he said.

Meshawn Maddock receives a hug after a Michigan judge dismissed the criminal cases against 15 people accused of acting falsely as electors for President Donald Trump in the 2020 election Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025 in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Vague Electoral College wording provided an opening

Each state has a set number of electors it assigns to the winner of its popular vote in a presidential contest. Those electors then cast the actual ballots for president, which are later read in Congress.

After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies exploited vague wording in a 19th century law that, along with the Constitution, governs how presidential winners are certified. Congress closed many of the potential loopholes in 2022 legislation that included specifying that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that it was the governor who would sign off.

Those who backed Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election praised the dismissal in Michigan as demonstrating that the fake elector cases have been vindictive.

“We all knew from day one that we had done nothing illegal or wrong,” Meshawn Maddock, a former state party chair and the most prominent of the Michigan Republicans charged, said in a written statement. “Yes, we volunteered to be an Alternate Elector in support of Donald J. Trump. That is not a crime, as much as Nessel wanted it to be one.”

“Great news from Michigan!” Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who advised Trump during his push to reverse the 2020 results, posted on the social platform X. “Now, time for AZ, WI and corrupt GA Fani Willis indictments to now be dismissed.”

The Arizona and Nevada attorneys general’s offices declined to comment, citing ongoing legal proceedings. Wisconsin’s case, filed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, has been moving slowly but without setbacks. A judge there last month rejected the defendants’ request to dismiss the case.

One of the Michigan defendants had criminal charges dropped after he reached a deal to cooperate with the attorney general’s office. In Georgia, former Trump attorneys and advisers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges before the case ran into ethics problems.

Defendants saw themselves as ‘alternate’ electors

Many of the defendants in the cases said they signed up for the scheme as a sort of procedural insurance in case Trump won any of the court challenges he had filed and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally the votes. None of the lawsuits were ultimately successful.

Marian Sheridan, one of the people charged in Michigan whose case was dismissed, said Tuesday that the group’s plan was to act as a “backup” or “lifeboat” in case the election results were overturned.

“We were not fake,” she said. “We were alternate.”

Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said such arguments were part of the reason he viewed the fake elector cases as some of the “weaker” criminal ones filed after the 2020 election.

But he said the combination of the failures of those prosecutions, coupled with Trump’s avoiding liability and his pardons of more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes in the cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, are a grim combination.

“All of it fits together to create really bad incentives for a system of free and fair election and peaceful transitions of power,” Hasen said.

By HANNA ARHIROVA

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — With the Russian advance deeper into the Donetsk region, the air in Ukraine’s last strongholds is thick with dread and the future for civilians who remain grows ever more uncertain.

In Kostiantynivka, once home to 67,000 people, there is no steady supply of power, water or gas. Shelling intensifies, drones fill the skies and the city has become unbearable, driving out the last remaining civilians.

Kramatorsk, by contrast, still shows signs of life. Just 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the north, the prewar population of 147,000 has thinned, but restaurants and cafes remain open. The streets are mostly intact. Though the city has endured multiple strikes and is now dominated by the military, daily routines persist in ways that are no longer possible in nearby towns.

Once the industrial heart of Ukraine, Donetsk is being steadily reduced to rubble. Many residents fear its cities may never be rebuilt and, if the war drags on, Russia eventually will swallow what is left.

“(Donetsk) region has been trampled, torn apart, turned into dust,” said Natalia Ivanova, a woman in her 70s who fled Kostiantynivka in early September after a missile struck near her home. Russian President Vladimir Putin “will go all the way … I’m sure of it. I have no doubt more cities will be destroyed.”

Despair and destruction

Kostiantynivka now sits on a shrinking patch of Ukrainian-held territory, wedged just west of Russian-occupied Bakhmut and nearly encircled on three sides by Moscow’s forces.

“They was always shooting,” Ivanova said. “You’d be standing there … and all you’d hear was the whistle of shells.”

She had two apartments. One was destroyed and the other one damaged. For months, she watched buildings disappear in an instant, while swarms of buzzing drones “like beetles” filled the sky, she said.

“I never thought I’d leave,” she added. “I was a stolid soldier, holding on. I’m a pensioner and it (the home) was my comfort zone.”

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For years now, Ivanova had watched the region’s cities fall: Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, and others. But the war, she said, still felt far away, even as it closed in on her doorstep.

“I felt for those people,” she said. “But it wasn’t enough to make me leave.”

A blast near her building finally forced her out. The explosion bent her windows so badly she couldn’t shut them before fleeing. Her apartment remained wide open. She left her whole life behind in Kostiantynivka, the city where she was born.

“Please, stop it,” she pleaded, directing her appeal to world leaders as she sat in an evacuation hub shortly after fleeing. “It’s the poorest people who suffer the most. This war is senseless and stupid. We’re dying like animals — by the dozens.”

Living through it together

Olena Voronkova decided to leave Kostiantynivka earlier, in May, when she could no longer run her two businesses: a beauty salon and a cafe.

She and her family relocated to nearby Kramatorsk, which is so close yet, in many ways, far away, as she is no longer able to enter her hometown. It wasn’t the first loss she had suffered since the war began. In 2023, a rocket strike from a multiple-launch system severely damaged their house.

The move to Kramatorsk wasn’t by choice, she added, but “because the circumstances left us no other option.”

First came the mandatory evacuation orders. Then a curfew so strict they could only move around the city for four hours a day. Then came the floods of remote-controlled drones.

“We’re used to life in Donetsk region. We feel good here. Kramatorsk is familiar. A lot of people from our city moved here — even local municipal workers,” Voronkova said.

Not long after arriving in Kramatorsk, she opened a cafe that is nearly identical to the one she left behind. She said the space just happened to look similar. It has high white walls and ornate mirrors she brought from her beauty salon, which is now in the combat zone.

The cafe has since become a refuge for others who also fled Kostiantynivka.

“At first there was hope that maybe some homes would survive — that people might go back,” she said. “Now we see it’s unlikely anyone has anything left. The city is turning into another Bakhmut, Toretsk or Avdiivka. Everything is being destroyed.”

She described the mood as “heavy” because “people are losing hope” and it felt easier in Kramatorsk because everyone shared the same loss, which created a sense of connection and mutual support.

“No one really knows where to go next. Everyone sees that Russia isn’t stopping. And that’s where the hopelessness begins. No one has a direction anymore. The uncertainty is everywhere,” she said.

Seizing the day

War is slowly draining the life out of Kramatorsk, as if warning that it may be the next city to be reduced to rubble.

Daria Horlova still remembers it as a bustling place where, at 9 p.m., life in the central square was just getting started. Now it’s deserted at all hours and 9 p.m. is when a strict curfew begins. The city is regularly bombed thanks to its proximity to the front line about 21 kilometers (13 miles) east.

“It’s still terrifying — when something’s flying overhead or strikes nearby, especially when it hits the city,” the 18-year-old said. “You want to cry, but there are no emotions left. No strength.”

Horlova studies remotely at a local university that relocated to another region and works as a nail artist. One day, she hopes to open her own salon. For now, she and her boyfriend are stuck in limbo, unsure of what to do next.

“It’s terrifying that most of the Donetsk region is occupied — and that it was Russia who attacked,” she said. “That’s why it feels like everything could change at any moment. Just look at Kostiantynivka — not long ago, life there was normal. And now …”

To distract herself from the anxiety, and the difficult decision she might soon have to make to leave, Horlova tries to focus on what brings her joy in the moment.

She already was evacuated from Kramatorsk once, earlier in the war, and doesn’t want to repeat it.

Instead of dwelling on what the future could hold, she asked her boyfriend, a tattoo artist, to ink a large tattoo of a goat skull on her right leg, something she has dreamed about for years.

“I think you just have to do things — and do them as soon as you can,” she said. “Being here, I know this tattoo will be a memory of Kramatorsk, if I end up leaving.”

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this report.