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Message From Crime Crisis in DC
From:
Peggy Sands Orchowski -- Immigration Expert Peggy Sands Orchowski -- Immigration Expert
Washington, DC
Wednesday, September 3, 2025

 

Message From Crime Crisis in DC

By Margaret Orchowski

 

I'm getting calls from friends across the country and Europe, asking if I'm OK in the "crime out-ot-control" crisis that President Trump is determined to fix here in DC. My first reaction – based on years of covering the local community councils' crime initiatives – was "What crisis?" We have almost no gun murders in Georgetown (although to be honest, they are a nightmare in black neighborhoods of DC that no one wants to talk about). Nor do I see gangs of raging youths on the streets of Georgetown.

 

 Of course there has always been crime in DC: cars vandalized, packages and purses stolen, people assaulted in daylight even. But in the past four years, I have to admit all of these "normalities" have increased in GT. Experts say this is because new DC laws have greatly reduced the number of police officers who patrol the neighborhoods as well as have loosened judicial punishment for "youth offenders" (up to 26 years old) who enjoy almost instant release and no consequences. 

 

Crime has cost me a lot of money the past four years also:  twice smashed windows on my car –two weeks apart; stolen purse requiring total replacement of all house and car locks, everything!; the tire lugs lock key stolen causing a long tow to my mechanic to unlock the wheels to fix a flat tire; and numerous packages stolen from the front porch. Plus in my neighborhood we have woken up to the sites of cars sitting on bricks with all four tires gone; and whole shelves of goods at Safeway and CVS a few blocks away, swept clean by organized snatch gangs of untouchable teenagers under the eye of frustrated employees who are ordered to just let them go.  Now many products are locked up (like bottles of Tide).This week the fear of it all hit me. I was in my kitchen about 9 pm preparing to take two large garbage bags to the bin sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house–less that 5 steps from the front door.  My roommate and two friends insisted urgently that I must not go out in the dark because I could be attacked.  I've noticed they lock all the doors (car and house) the minute they step away.  

 

Maybe even in Santa Barbara people lock their house and car doors now. But in DC the caution has evolved into paranoia.  So now I have to agree.  Crime is out-of-control in DC! Almost everyone I've interviewed here in GT (FYI:  95% DC electorate voted for Kamala) say they are "relieved" to have the surge of police presence on the streets 24/7, with full support from the Mayor and the DC police. Only a few "far out lefties" call it a "storm trooper military takeover of DC".  The crime that affects Georgetown most – theft from autos and porches and vandalization of automobiles and homes—has fallen to almost nothing the past 30 days. 

 

The message is clear: when laws are honored and enforced and the offenders punished, the crimes end quickly.  The same with illegal immigration.

 

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FYI: see Maureen Dowd's Aug 18 op ed in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/opinion/criminal-fights-crime.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

 

Jan. 27, Georgetowner online                     ESSAY about birthright citizenship.                        645 words

Executive Order Intends io Limit Birthright Citizenship, Not End It

By Margaret Orchowski

Please don’t panic or exaggerate the birthrights citizenship executive order. The much expected EO does not end birthright citizenship. It limits it. That does not take a constitutional amendment.  In fact it’s been changed by Congress and by a Supreme court decision several times in the past.

Here's the first sentence of the 14th amendment:: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” 

The definitive word in that sentence is AND!  If the framers wanted anyone and everyone born in the US to be citizens they would not have added an “and” clause, AND means (if you recall grammar lessons) also, plus, as well as. 

 As you can see, the first sentence of the 14th amendment states clearly that anyone claiming birthrights citizenship must fulfill TWO CONDITIONS:

1.     Be born in the United States

2.     Be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

The order would make ineligible for birthright citizenship anyone born in the U.S. whose parents have no lawful or legal authorization to be here or who are in the US on limited, temporary non-immigration permits such as foreign students and tourists.  

Changing who is eligible or not for birthrights citizenship has actually happened in the past via Congressional legislation and also a ruling of the Supreme Court.  In addition, Trump’s executive order reflects at least 15 years of proposals considered by Congress, one as HR1 (in the 112thCongress.

The 14th amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 to “rightly repudiate the Supreme Court of the United States’s shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race”, as stated in Trump’s executive oder.  There were no national immigration laws until the 1880s; hence the amendment at the time did not address legal permanent, temporary or illegal immigration status of the birth parents.

But in 1868, according to the Congressional Research Office, there were FOUR defined groups of people in the United States who were NOT considered to be under the jurisdiction of U.S. laws and whose birth children were not allowed citizenship nor the right to vote.  

The jurisdictional status of two of these groups were changed over time.  The children of legal permanent Chinese immigrants were ruled by the Supreme Court in 1898 in U.S. vs. Wong (a very narrow ruling) to be under the jurisdiction.  In 1921 American Indians born and raised in a recognized Indian Nation were given the right to vote and hence citizenship by Congress in the 1921 Indian Voting Rights Act.

But two other groups remain excluded to this day: 

1)     the children of diplomats to the U.S, with immunity from U.S. laws; and 

2)     a rather nebulous universal rule according to the U.S., Congressional Research Office that the children born of recognized invaders are not under the jurisdiction of the invaded state.

Since 2010, Congress has addressed proposals to exclude birthright citizenship from TWO additional groups:  

1) children born of birth tourists (visitors who come on a three month permit with the sole purpose of getting citizenship for their child with no intention or right to immigrate and contribute to the U.S,) and 

2) children born of parents BOTH of whom are illegally in the country and have no right to be here,  In 2011 this 2 page bill was HR1 in the new Republican dominated 112th congress.

Clearly President Trump’s executive order is not new, unconstitutional nor in any way racist. Read it here (2+ pages only) .  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-meaning-and-value-of-american-citizenship/

It may however be challenged and perhaps decided by the Supreme Court, for instance on whether or not illegal immigrants are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. or not.

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Margaret Orchowski is a credentialed Congressional reporter on immigration and author of two recent books (Nov 2024) on how immigration laws and policies evolved in the U.S.: “The 5 Basics Everyone should Know About Immigration” and a new paperback updated edition of “The law That Changed the Face of America” 

  

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Name: Peggy Sands Orchowski
Title: Senior Congressional Correspondent
Dateline: Washington, DC United States
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