“I immediately got this sinking feeling that I had just let ICE into my building”

Photo by PoPville flickr user Eric P.

Ed. Note: Last week MPD reminded us “it is the policy of the Metropolitan Police Department that we do not participate in any type of immigration enforcement”.

“Dear PoPville,

please be aware MY SPANISH IS NOT PERFECT AND I MIGHT BE WRONG, but…. fyi-

I am dog sitting right now so this morning on our walk I stopped by my apartment to say hi to my cat. on my way out of the building (6:45a) there were four police officers just standing there, waiting to get into the building. no sense of urgency whatsoever, so obviously no one had called them. and at 6:45a they’re clearly trying to surprise someone. after they said hello, I expressed my surprise at seeing four cops outside my building, and I let them in.

after five seconds I kind of retroactively noticed that they were all white, and their uniforms weren’t blue like DC cops. I immediately got this sinking feeling that I had just let ICE into my building (I know they made a visit to Columbia Heights a few weeks ago as well…) I took the dog home, then walked back over to my apartment. a Latina lady was standing in the lobby and I started talking to her and asked her if she saw the four police officers that had come into the building 15 minutes earlier. she said yes. I said “is it ICE?” and she said “yes it is ICE” and pointed to indicate they were upstairs in my building. this was all in Spanish, and my Spanish admittedly is not perfect–so definitely possible that there was a misunderstanding–but I’m pretty sure that lady knows what ICE is. I can’t believe I let them in. fuck!”