Trump deputy Stephen Miller says DC crackdown is for the ‘safety’ of Black residents. These residents say it’s causing more harm

“[Miller] pretending to be the savior of Black people in Washington is both a hilarious contradiction and disgusting propaganda,” said Markus Batchelor, a D.C. native and political director at People For the American Way.

After being met with angry protesters at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station amid the Trump administration’s federal law enforcement crackdown, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller dismissed community dissenters and said the surge of National Guard troops and federal police agents was all for the “benefit” of D.C.’s Black residents.

“Most of the citizens who live in Washington, D.C. are Black. This is not a city that has had any safety for its Black citizens for generations,” said Miller, who leads President Donald Trump‘s domestic policy.

The White House official, who is the chief architect of Trump’s anti-DEI agenda and launched a conservative law firm that sued to end several racial equity programs, told reporters on Wednesday alongside Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “President Trump is the one who is fixing that with the support of the Metropolitan Police Department, the support of the National Guard, and our federal law enforcement officers.”

As he tried to speak over a chorus of protesters, Miller downplayed the level of vitriol captured in videos of likely travelers heckling him, Vance, and Hegseth as they visited National Guard troops stationed at a Shake Shack. He dismissed the angry hecklers as “crazy communists” who are responsible for D.C. being “one of the most violent cities on planet Earth.”

“For too long, 99% of this city has been terrorized by 1% of the city, and the voices that you hear out there…have no roots. They have no connection to the city,” Miller claimed without possibly knowing the residency background of the crowd of individuals. He continued, “They have no families they’re raising in this city. They have no one [who] they are sending to school in this city. They have no jobs in the city…They’re the ones who’ve been advocating for the 1%; the criminals, the killers, the rapists, the drug dealers.”

The senior Trump White House official said the administration will “ignore these stupid white hippies [who] all need to go home and take a nap because they’re all over 90 years old.” Miller added, “We’re going to get back to the business of protecting the American people and the citizens of Washington, D.C.”

But while President Trump’s top policy chief says the administration’s surge of federal law enforcement and American troops is for the benefit of Black D.C. residents, public policy experts and former D.C. and White House officials say the federal government’s actions will not make the city safer in the long run.

Gregory Jackson, a public safety expert and former deputy director of the Biden White House’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, criticized the Trump administration for “demonizing and criminalizing entire Black communities” while cutting critical funding for public safety and community violence interventions.

Jackson said Biden-era investments in partnership with local leaders resulted in a significant decrease in crime in urban cities like D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

“The way that we reduce crime is by investing in people and holding the industry accountable for putting illegal guns into our communities,” Jackson told theGrio.

The former Biden official pointed to Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney of D.C. Jeanine Pirro, who recently instructed federal prosecutors in the district not to pursue federal charges for those holding rifles and shotguns.

‘They also reduced the timeline for you to get your concealed carry permit. So they’re encouraging more guns in our street, while defunding life-saving programs, while defunding city services, and while disrespecting a very large police force and really replacing them with outsiders,” said Jackson.

Simply put, Jackson said the Trump administration’s handling of crime in D.C. is an “ineffective approach.”

Courtney Snowden, a sixth-generation D.C. resident and former D.C. deputy mayor, told theGrio that the nation’s capital city is being “painted with this horrible perspective that is not grounded in any fact.”

“Like in any community across the country, we have some trouble. You can need additional support and engagement,” said Snowden. However, she said, “We shouldn’t be criminalizing homelessness. We shouldn’t criminalize poverty.”

Snowden said she believed D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had done an “excellent job” creating public safety resources, citing the city’s 30-year low in crime. She added, “Right now, it feels like all of that’s getting undermined with this effort by the [Trump] administration.”

Markus Batchelor, a D.C. native and political director at People For the American Way, said of Stephen Miller’s remarks on Wednesday, “I’ll take a thousand white hippies standing up for our democracy over one white nationalist trying to destroy it.”

“Stephen Miller has spent the last decade creating and implementing the Trump administration’s most anti-Black policies,” Batchelor told theGrio.

“He’s led the effort to dismantle Black people’s access to housing, education, jobs, the vote, and equal justice under law,” he added. “Him pretending to be the savior of Black people in Washington is both a hilarious contradiction and disgusting propaganda.”