WASHINGTON — On a typical day, food delivery drivers would be lined up along this busy stretch of 14th Street NW waiting for their phones to buzz with an order.
But less than two weeks into President Donald Trump’s D.C. takeover of policing in D.C., the deliveristas were hard to find.
Vendors selling sliced mango and taquitos on the sidewalk said business had plummeted in large part because the drivers — who are overwhelmingly immigrants — were staying off the streets, fearing run-ins with federal law enforcement.
Kiros Gebretsadik, who runs a cafe beside the nearby Metro stop, said walk-in traffic for coffee and pastries had dropped sharply since last week, when federal agents and National Guard members turned up in the city in force.
“We don’t have business,” Gebretsadik said. “There’s nobody walking around. I don’t know how we’re going to pay rent.”
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The Trump administration has touted its militarized takeover of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, which has included a swarm of federal law enforcement officers and National Guard soldiers, as a massive success that’s reduced crime in the city and made people feel safe again.
But one of the most noticeable impacts of the takeover, besides the presence of National Guard troops and Army vehicles by national landmarks, has been immigration enforcement — especially high-profile arrests of delivery drivers whose mopeds are no longer as ubiquitous in D.C. traffic as they were two weeks ago.
“We are seeing the delivery driver community being targeted, frankly, because it’s easy for ICE. They’re on the street, ICE doesn’t need a warrant.”
– Michael Lukens, executive director at Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington
“We are seeing a lot of people not do delivery. We are seeing people stay home. We are seeing people scared to leave their houses,” said Michael Lukens, executive director at the nonprofit Amica Center for Immigrant Rights in Washington.
“We are seeing the delivery driver community being targeted, frankly, because it’s easy for ICE. They’re on the street, ICE doesn’t need a warrant,” Lukens said.
Federal agents have been tagging along with D.C. police doing traffic stops and responding to 911 calls around town. HuffPost reporters have observed agents from various federal law enforcement agencies riding with Metropolitan Police Department officers and arriving at traffic stops in their own unmarked vehicles, offering backup. Part of their routine includes checking people’s immigration status.
The White House said Thursday that since the operation began on Aug. 7, federal agents have been involved in 630 arrests — 40% of which were immigrants illegally in the country.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers claimed in a statement that “hundreds of dangerous criminals” had been removed.
“The left and the media can coddle criminals, but our nation’s capital will not be a safe haven for violent criminals under President Trump’s leadership,” she said.
Besides the made-for-social-media apprehension of the guy who hit an officer with a sandwich, the most widely noticed arrests have involved immigrants.
On Saturday, onlookers recorded video as federal agents manhandled a delivery driver coming out of a coffee shop. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the man had illegally entered the U.S. in 2023 and had been previously ordered deported. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he was a suspected gang member and suggested it was misleading to call him a mere moped driver.
On Tuesday, officers injured a man by reportedly ramming his moped, then handcuffed him to a gurney as he was put in an ambulance. On Wednesday, federal agents tackled another man who tried to flee during a traffic stop by the National Mall. The man said through sobs he was a worker, not a criminal; the White House pointed out he’d once been charged with aggravated sexual battery of a minor.
Delivery drivers have not totally disappeared. On Thursday night, one man on a moped picking up an order at Taco Bell on H Street volunteered he was in the country legally. Asked about other drivers, the man, who did not speak English, slapped imaginary handcuffs on his wrists.
Federal officers are also doing some work independent of local police.
On Friday in Columbia Heights, HuffPost observed masked federal agents detain a man insisting he had legal status and pleading that his wife had recently given birth and couldn’t walk. The officers calmly put him in an unmarked SUV, saying they needed to take him “to the office” an hour drive away to check his immigration status, and that it was possible he would be released. It wasn’t clear what led up to the encounter.
Moped delivery drivers became more numerous in D.C. starting in 2023, following the arrival of immigrants, including many Venezuelans, who’d been bused to Washington by Republican governors furious about then-president Joe Biden’s border policies, which allowed an unprecedented influx of migrants to the U.S.
The Columbia Heights area of D.C. isn’t the only place where delivery drivers no longer congregate as they wait for their phones to buzz with new requests for food delivery. The moped riders have also seemingly disappeared from H Street and Union Station.
Companies that employ delivery drivers — Uber, DoorDash and Grubhub — did not respond to requests for comment.
Ryan Gordon, owner of The Queen Vic bar and restaurant on H Street, said that for the past two years, between 20 and 40 delivery drivers would gaggle on their mopeds near his bar during the day while they waited for orders. About three weeks ago, Gordon noticed they congregated in smaller groups in different locations around the block.
“The last couple days, they’re not there,” Gordon said.