As a Commissioner, Miguel reacted to Trump’s emergency declaration by convening a meeting of the ANC Home Rule Caucus, which he chairs (Aug. 12). 

• Early in 2025, Miguel had founded the Home Rule Caucus, a group of 75+ ANC commissioners from across the District, to coordinate on DC autonomy issues. 

• The Caucus meeting on the night of August 12 focused on planning concurrent resolutions across ANCs to condemn the federal takeover; pressuring Congress to end the Section 740 state of emergency after the statutory 30-day period; and documenting federal overreach in our neighborhoods.

Miguel participated in a briefing with Mayor Bowser and published on social media the three principles that her team laid out for federal operations in the District, including that federal personnel would wear agency-identifying insignia (Aug. 13). He monitored fast-moving events on the ground for compliance with those principles (Aug. 13). Miguel also wrote to other elected officials to seek clarifications (Aug. 14) and shared the responses he received (Aug. 14). He escalated videos showing operations in DC that appeared to violate the principles (Aug. 15, Aug. 17) for the Mayor and Deputy Mayor. He would go on to discuss these incidents directly with the Deputy Mayor.

As it became clear these principles were being disrespected, as the Chair of ANC 1B, Miguel drafted and introduced a resolution calling on District officials to pressure federal counterparts to develop guidelines on masking and identifiability (Sep. 4). It was crucial to him that ICE and other federal agents stop concealing their identities and wearing deceptive uniforms that said “POLICE.” ICE agents are not our police. This malpractice instill fear and complicate legal accountability for the families of detained people. 

• Miguel’s resolution also called on the DC Attorney General to publicize information about federal agents’ obligations with respect to identification/badging and about channels for reporting violations. 

• The resolution further applauded the VISIBLE Act being considered in the U.S. Senate and called on the DC Council to enact similar legislation. ANC 1B passed the resolution unanimously on September 4 (read here). He worked through his networks to lobby other commissions to do the same; at least a dozen other ANCs around the District did so (see list here, also Sep. 29). Miguel took copies of the passed resolutions to Capitol Hill in partnership with Free DC’s Congress Working Group, and personally delivered them to key Senate offices (Sep. 8).

At the same meeting, Miguel introduced and ANC 1B passed a concurrent resolution that, among other things, supported legal challenges by the DC Attorney General and civil-society organizations that “contest[ed] that the statutory emergency threshold under Section 740” — the basis for the president’s emergency declaration — “[had] been lawfully met” (read here). He also undertook a citywide lobbying effort to activate other ANCs around this resolution. 

• It is very difficult to coordinate among the 46 commissions around the District; they have varying levels of interest and capacity, and at this time, many commissions were on summer break. Miguel is extremely proud that his hands-on coordination effort, involving phone calls and emails to dozens and dozens of commissioners, bore fruit: around 36 commissions ended up debating this resolution and nearly all of them passed it (e.g.: GW Hatchet; see a mostly complete tracker here). Fourteen commissions called special sessions (i.e., meetings outside their regular schedule) just to consider the resolution, in response to his lobbying efforts. 

• This campaign showed the potential of ANCs across the District to act in concert; indeed, one of Miguel’s explicit goals was to build muscle memory for ANCs to collaborate, especially on foundational issues of home rule and self-determination.

Miguel posted a video he took of an excessive federal law-enforcement operation to apprehend a single woman experiencing homelessness in Ward 1 (Sep. 2). This incident illustrated how the federal surge/“emergency” fell harshly on other vulnerable groups along with immigrants.

He compared the federal government’s actions in DC to those we had seen earlier in the summer in Los Angeles and raised Fourth Amendment concerns (Aug. 14). Miguel celebrated Attorney General Schwalb’s strong opinion in opposition to the so-called emergency police commissioner “appointed” by former U.S. AG Bondi to oversee MPD (Aug. 15).

Miguel worked with commissioner colleagues through the Home Rule Caucus to prepare and publish an op-ed (principal authors Commissioners Footer, Sherman, and Allison) which pointed out that “public safety is not improved when trained local police are replaced with military personnel” and that we were at risk of “undoing a decade of progress in community policing.” Miguel is a signatory to the piece, which ran in The 51st (Aug. 29). He tweeted commentary on it (Sep. 3).

• He amplified the joint message, making a similar argument, that DC religious leaders including the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde had issued on effective policing and true public safety (Aug. 14).

• He spoke to the media about the economic impacts of the National Guard deployment (Aug. 21).

Miguel was very proud to participate in the “We Are All DC” march and rally sponsored by Free DC (Sep. 6) as well as the “No Kings” rally (Oct. 19). He also took extra pride in joining Fiesta DC this year as an act of defiance and solidarity (Sep. 28).

He raised further legal concerns about apprehensions of Latino residents in DC based on racial profiling, including that of José Escobar Molina, which contradicted Justice Kavanaugh’s assurances in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo (Sep. 26).

Miguel applauded Councilmember Nadeau’s convening of a human-rights hearing in the Council and called on the Council’s Committee on Public Safety to follow suit by conducting MPD oversight (Oct. 23). He participated in the human-rights hearing, at which Miguel asked the Council: “what is the value of the Human Rights Act or the Sanctuary Values Act if they are not enforced?” (quoted in The 51st, on NBC4, on Bluesky, and in Washington Socialist; testimony available here).

He worked closely with Commissioner Garrett to draft a letter from commissioners calling on Councilmember Pinto to hold an MPD oversight hearing (Oct. 23; the letter was issued on Oct. 27 and can be found here). Among other things, the letter asked the Council to investigate which directives governed MPD’s engagement with federal immigration enforcement agencies; what interpretive guidance or training MPD personnel had received regarding their interactions with federal agencies; and what mechanisms are in place for residents, schools, or other local leaders to report incidents of potential misconduct.

Miguel expressed frustration that community members were not receiving responses to their letters to the Mayor seeking information on MPD’s rules of engagement vis-à-vis federal operations (Oct. 29).

Miguel also undertook other efforts, including:

• Since August 12 (the day after the emergency declaration), Miguel has conducted regular know-your-rights outreach in both English and Spanish to vulnerable populations in his ANC district. Eventually, he partnered with Free DC’s Ward 1 team to routinize this outreach, creating a group of neighbors who now rotate KYR shifts every week and can cover when Miguel is away or unavailable. Miguel is very grateful for the cooperation of Free DC and for his neighbors’ generosity with their time, without which this would not be possible!

• Miguel attended a convening of municipal officials and activists from multiple cities in Chicago on October 30, at the height of ICE and CBP operations there, to share experiences/best practices, engage in scenario planning to strengthen our readiness to respond to various potential provocations by the federal government, and build relationships across jurisdictions to create a collaborative network of partners. Miguel also participated in their follow-up convening in December.