Some D.C.-area residents shared their stories about being arrested without a warrant by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a hearing Wednesday for a lawsuit aimed at stopping illegal arrests of people perceived to be immigrants.
Some D.C.-area residents shared their stories about being arrested without a warrant by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a hearing Wednesday for a lawsuit aimed at stopping illegal arrests of people perceived to be immigrants.
“I was detained by D.C. police and then ICE arrived,” said a plaintiff named Elias through a representative who read his story in U.S. District Court because he is currently in the hospital.
Elias was arrested by ICE and said he was detained for more than 8 hours. At the time he was detained, he was headed to D.C. for a dialysis appointment, which he has three times a week.
“I didn’t have my medication with me and I felt very ill. My family was suffering not knowing what will happen to me,” Elias wrote.
The plaintiffs are being represented by the ACLU of the District of Columbia, Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, CASA, the National Immigration Project, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and the law firm of Covington, Burling LLP.
“People are still experiencing these harms day in and day out in the streets of D.C. So we certainly do hope that the court will rule urgently on these issues,” Yulie Landan, staff attorney with the National Immigration Project, said.
During the hearing, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell listened to arguments in a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case led by CASA to put a stop to the arrests while the case is being considered. They are also asking for class certification of the plaintiffs.
“We recognize that there are individuals who are impacted by this unlawful policy and practice, far beyond the individual plaintiffs who have bravely put their names and their information before the court,” said Aditi Shah, staff attorney with the ACLU of the District of Columbia.
Judge Howell asked for more information from both parties in the case with a deadline of Tuesday, Nov. 25.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
Volunteers shoveled up soil at one of two new gardens being added inside a Langley Park, Maryland, neighborhood that officials hope will benefit the local community in multiple ways.
The gardens are one of four new greenspaces being built around the region through a grant by Natural Forward.
(WTOP/Jose Umana)
WTOP/Jose Umana
Volunteers at a Langley Park, Maryland, neighborhood on Friday, Oct. 18, 2025.
(WTOP/Jose Umana)
WTOP/Jose Umana
Volunteers shoveled up soil at one of two new gardens being added inside a Langley Park, Maryland, neighborhood on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025.
(WTOP/Jose Umana)
WTOP/Jose Umana
Children were allowed to paint on the new log seats while CASA volunteers set up picnic tables.
(WTOP/Jose Umana)
WTOP/Jose Umana
One of the gardens is a rain garden, which collects and absorb rainwater runoff from roofs and driveways to reduce flooding.
(WTOP/Jose Umana)
WTOP/Jose Umana
Volunteers shoveled up soil at one of two new gardens being added inside a Langley Park, Maryland, neighborhood Friday afternoon that officials hope will benefit the local community in multiple ways.
The gardens — located on 15th Avenue outside of the headquarters of immigrant advocacy organization CASA — are one of four new greenspaces being built around the region through a grant by Natural Forward, a local agricultural group. One of the gardens is a rain garden, which collects and absorb rainwater runoff from roofs and driveways to reduce flooding.
Alice Sturm, director of restoration for Natural Forward, told WTOP choosing the CASA headquarters made sense for its place as a community hub sitting in the middle of several garden-style apartments. It also was an ideal location due to the building’s structure, which Sturm called “the perfect place to demonstrate conservation landscaping.”
“There needs to be water that’s being collected from an impermeable surface, like a roof or a driveway, that needs to sink in somewhere,” Sturm said. “So this is a big building, and it has a big roof.”
The grant included $100,000 from the Klingenstein Family Foundation and contributions from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
It paid for the materials to build a rain garden, purchase native plants to rebuild the organization’s community garden, payment for those who worked on the project, and garden kits for those who live in the area.
Sturm said Natural Forward will also assist in training to members of CASA’s workers’ cooperative, the Workers Co-op Without Borders, who work in landscaping to help maintain both gardens. Swamp Rose Co-Op, a worker-owned cooperative based out of Silver Spring, did the work on the gardens and will assist in the trainings.
Shannon Wilk, director for education for CASA, said the new gardens — specifically the rain garden — will do more than just make the area look beautiful.
“There is an issue in this community right now with drainage,” she said. “We’re seeing drainage that is running off into residents’ basements. We’re seeing drainage that is making it into our sewer system after picking up a lot of pollutants.
Landscapers from Swamp Rose Co-op arrived early Friday morning to start working on the rain garden. Cesar Garzon for the co-op said his team had to use special equipment, including a drill, to dig holes for the shrubs added to the garden.
“We had a little bit of hard time here because the soil was very compacted, and years of mowing and just cutting the lawn just compact the soil in a way,” Garzon said.
In the afternoon, volunteers and neighbors arrived on the secondary garden. Signs were posted in Spanish to let the community know about the new native plants added to the area. Children were allowed to paint on the new log seats while CASA volunteers set up picnic tables.
With the neighborhood lacking greenspaces, Wilk said refurbishing its community garden through the grant will allow many to enjoy the space, just as the neighborhood children enjoy using its mini-soccer fields, basketball court and pool.
“They are extremely social,” Wilk said. “They want a community gathering place where they can be safe and in community with each other.”
Wilk said the success of the two gardens will hopefully encourage other organizations to team up with CASA to clean up other spaces in the Langley Park community, including a nearby playground.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
WTOP spoke with members of the D.C. region’s immigrant community for their feedback on President Donald Trump’s moves against immigrants and how the community has responded.
President Donald Trump’s return to the White House brought along a sweeping immigration crackdown when he said he would deport “the worst of the worst.”
That pledge has led to raids and arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, including many people currently detained with no criminal convictions. According to a Department of Homeland Security report in September, over 2 million people have been deported or willingly left the United States since Trump’s inauguration.
A Pew Research Center analysis found that as of June 2025, 19% of the U.S. labor force were immigrants, down from 20%, with Trump’s anti-immigrant actions becoming a main factor for the drop.
Those actions have brought fear and anxiety to the immigrant communities throughout the nation.
WTOP spoke with members of the D.C. region’s immigrant community for their feedback on Trump’s moves against immigrants and how the community has responded.
Finding work
José arrived in the United States from Mexico in 1995. He’s been living in the D.C. region for over a year, working either for companies in plumbing-related jobs or for the Workers Co-op Without Borders through CASA, one of the largest immigration rights organizations in the country.
While he has been able to find work, José told WTOP he knows many of his friends and co-workers are struggling to make ends meet.
“I have heard that for many people, jobs are scarce because of what’s happening,” José said in Spanish.
Yet, the recent government shutdown is affecting José and others as work has dried up.
“A lot of the work the companies got was from government workers,” José said. “And now, they don’t want to spend.”
‘Risks of being profiled’
Cesar Garzon, a naturalized citizen from Venezuela, works for a worker-owned landscaping company, the Swamp Rose Co-op, based out of Silver Spring, Maryland. He said while the economic outlook led to some cancellations, he and his team have remained busy with steady work for the last eight months.
However, Garzon admitted it has been harder to find people who can help provide an additional hand.
“There has been a reducing workforce,” Garzon said. “A lot of people have kind of decided to either leave or they’re just not working.”
With the current political climate, Garzon said he and his co-workers established some strategies in case they are wrongly identified during a possible interaction with an ICE agent, including setting up a contact person.
“We face the risks of being profiled, and of course, that’s not fun,” Garzon said.
New skills to find new jobs
Lindolfo Carballo, senior director of the community economic development department for CASA, told WTOP that he has seen an uptick in immigrants applying for jobs at the organization’s job centers. However, he has also seen an increase in immigrants attempting to learn skills for different types of work.
But there is still some fear in the community. Carballo said the Trump administration’s continued actions are making it difficult for employers to hire workers and for workers to find jobs.
“The truth of the matter is that there is a need for workers,” he said. “It’s a very large need of workers.”
Carballo encourages those immigrants who are still in the U.S. to continue fighting for their rights.
“We need to fight back,” Carballo said. “We need to be resilient. We need to stand up for our rights and, of course, right now, it’s very difficult. But we know that we will overcome.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
Langley Park, Maryland’s mostly Latino community is proud of its 100-year history as a lively neighborhood of immigrants despite facing ICE raids and housing issues.
Yolanda Brewster at her Guatemalan Xelaju kiosk in La Union mall in Langley Park, Maryland.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
Maryland state Del. Deni Taveras enjoys a meal at San Alejo Restaurant in Langley Park.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
Baleadas Express, a Honduran restaurant, located in Langley Park.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
A painted utility box posted outside the Langley Park Garden Apartments features Spanish-language writing.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
La Union Mall sits elevated on top of a small hill in Langley Park.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
The headquarters of the Latino advocacy organization CASA is in Langley Park. The mansion was formerly owned by a British mine owner who established the community in the early 1920s.
(WTOP/Diane Morris)
WTOP/Diane Morris
WTOP celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month this Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, with stories spotlighting the contributions, culture and accomplishments of Hispanic communities across the D.C. region.
This page contains a video which is being blocked by your ad blocker. In order to view the video you must disable your ad blocker.
In Langley Park, Md.’s immigrant spirit endures despite ICE raids, Purple Line turmoil
Sit down in the San Alejo Salvadoran restaurant, near the corner of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard in suburban Maryland, and you have entered the heart of Langley Park — like a mini Central America.
Situated on the border where Montgomery County ends and Prince George’s County begins, Langley Park’s mostly Latino community is proud of its 100-year history as a lively neighborhood of immigrants, filled with Hispanic markets, restaurants and small businesses that line its busy streets.
But challenges from landlord neglect and the impacts of the Maryland Transit Administration’s new Purple Line are making life more difficult for the residents who call Langley Park home. And more recently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have put the community on edge.
National politics hit home
As she sat eating tamales at San Alejo, Maryland State Del. Deni Taveras talked about how the ICE raids in the neighborhood have also reopened old wounds.
“A lot of people here lived through wars in their countries. To have masked men with machine guns breaking down doors at 6 a.m., that brings trauma,” she said, referring to how ICE officers have been entering homes in Langley Park. “People are afraid to go to work. They’re afraid to make a living,” she said.
Lindolfo Carballo, senior director of community economic development of the Latino advocacy organization CASA, which is located in the center of Langley Park, agreed with Taveras. “What this administration is doing has horrified our community,” he said and added that he’s seen ICE officers pull people right off the street and social media posts have tracked the abuse in the neighborhood.
Carballo said ICE officers broke the window of a Langley Park woman’s car with her teenage daughter inside. “Her daughter saw the whole thing. And that’s not only illegal but it’s inhumane,” he said.
The reason for the targeting? About 85% of the neighborhood’s 22,000 residents are from Central America, and some are undocumented, Carballo said. The majority are from El Salvador and Guatemala, along with immigrants from Nicaragua, Honduras and other countries.
Carballo himself is an immigrant who escaped El Salvador in the early 1980s after he was arrested for participating in anti-government activities during the nation’s civil war. Fearing persecution under a military government, he was able to get asylum in D.C. before coming to the Langley Park area. He is concerned that Central American immigrants now are being denied the opportunities he received.
Even before he came to work in Langley Park, the area was always a neighborhood of immigrants, Carballo said, stretching back to the 1920s when a British immigrant, Frederick McCormick-Goodhart bought the land where Langley Park now sits.
The mining magnate built a 30,000-square-foot mansion, where CASA is now headquartered. Developers built low-cost garden apartments surrounding the mansion, which attracted large groups of immigrants over the past 90 years, from Eastern European Jews to Africans to an influx of Central Americans starting in the 1970s.
Housing, economic strains and fentanyl
While ICE raids are the latest concern for Langley Park residents, the neighborhood has had some longstanding problems that leaders are still addressing.
Carballo said while immigrants were able to find cheaper housing in Langley Park, its housing stock has long suffered neglect. For years, landlords often deferred maintenance and faced few consequences because non-English speaking tenants didn’t have the tools to legally challenge them — leaving some occupants living in deteriorating buildings.
“Drive around here and you can see windows made of cardboard,” Carballo said. “And in the wintertime, that is cruel.”
About 20 years ago, with the help of CASA, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary next month, some tenants organized and fought to improve living conditions, which brought about upgrades in some buildings.
“This is a hardworking area of individuals that want to make their American dreams come true,” Taveras said. But now people are paying $1,700 a month for rent, which is very high for someone making just $15-$20 an hour, she said.
To make ends meet, many people rent out rooms or families double up so they can make rent, causing overcrowding in some buildings.
Taveras has represented different parts of Prince George’s County on the council for 12 years, and now represents Langley Park while living on the edge of the neighborhood. She came to the D.C. area from New York in the early 2000s.
Of Dominican heritage, she says she’s proud to fight for the neighborhood, a community grappling with the same housing and economic struggles she knew growing up as an orphan in one of New York’s Hispanic neighborhoods.
Adding to the economic strains, fentanyl is also eating away at the neighborhood, especially among young people, Taveras said. “It was an onslaught, especially at Northwestern and High Point high schools” where many Langley Park teens attend.
Over the past 10 years, however, “we’ve been able to address the addiction through Narcan,” she said. Legislation and distributing fentanyl detection strips have also helped “because a lot of people didn’t know that what they were taking was laced with fentanyl.”
The Purple Line — hopes and hazards
The Purple Line, MTA’s long-awaited 16-mile light rail stretching from Bethesda to New Carrollton, cuts directly through Langley Park.A 2017 report said few deny that the Purple Line will bring new amenities and services to what researchers referred to as a “long-neglected portion of the county.”
While many in Langley Park welcome better transit access, they also worry it will accelerate gentrification, Carballo said.
Construction of the line over the past seven years has cut into profits for businesses along the rail’s path, according to Yolanda Brewster, a Guatemalan immigrant who runs the Xelaju kiosk, which sells Guatemalan food, clothes and souvenirs in La Union Mall on University Boulevard.
“First we had the pandemic, which wiped us out,” she said. “Then we had Purple Line construction, which took away business when it became too difficult to travel here. Now it’s like a cemetery — no one comes here anymore.”
Culture helps build community
Despite these challenges, Langley Park endures as a place where families build futures. Carballo of CASA said that, to him, the neighborhood represents “everything positive.”
“It’s a very young neighborhood, right? There are so many kids here, so many people, and that is the future of the United States.”
Del. Taveras agrees on how deeply that spirit runs. “We have children here that are on their way to Dartmouth. We have families starting their businesses, that are extremely entrepreneurial.”
“We have a sense of resilience here, a sense of community here, a sense of culture that is extremely rich and very endearing,” Taveras said.
She said this is especially important to point out during Hispanic Heritage Month, when the U.S. celebrates all things Latino. She remembered celebrations past at Langley Park’s MegaMart Hispanic grocery store, which had a party for Guatemalian Independence Day on Oct. 15 last year that was “so big, it lasted until the next day.
“As somebody who could have lived anywhere, I chose to be here,” Taveras said, “and I’m so proud of where I live.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
The immigrants’ rights organizations behind the class action lawsuit accusing the federal government of engaging in a pattern of illegal arrests in D.C. since the law enforcement surge started in August held a virtual press conference on Friday.
Flavio was getting ready with his boss one morning in August when officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived and arrested him and two of his co-workers.
At first, they were taken in handcuffs to an area near the Pentagon, and then to a private home. Eventually, he said, he was transported to an immigration detention center.
The immigrants’ rights organizations behind the class action lawsuit accusing the federal government of engaging in a pattern of illegal arrests in Washington, D.C. since the law enforcement surge started in August, held a virtual press conference on Friday.
Flavio, an alias used for security reasons, spoke through a translator via Zoomfrom El Salvador. He said he came to the U.S. in 2023.
“I came looking for an opportunity to work and contribute to the community. I dedicated myself to working in construction, building patios and laying concrete,” Flavio said.
Several days after ICE officers came, Flavio was on an airplane with 200 other people, all with their hands and feet shackled as they were being deported back to El Salvador. Flavio described their treatment as “humiliating and degrading.”
He said through the translator that the hardest part was not having the chance to see a lawyer or appear before a judge.
“All we were doing was working and seeking a better future for our families,” Flavio said. “The only crime we committed was being poor and working hard for our families.”
Aditi Shah, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., said Flavio’s story is only one story of the nearly 1,000 immigrants who have been arrested in the District since the beginning of the law enforcement surge on Aug. 11.
ACLU of D.C. filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security, its director and other federal agencies, charging that federal agents are illegally and indiscriminately arresting people in D.C. who are perceived to be Latino.
“We’re seeking relief on behalf of all people who, since Aug. 11, have been arrested or will be arrested in D.C. pursuant to the government’s unlawful policy and practice of making these warrantless immigration arrests without probable cause,” Shah said.
According to Yulie Landan, the staff attorney for the National Immigration Project, the current approach to enforcement is having a deep impact on every D.C. resident.
“It’s creating a sense that anyone can be stopped and interrogated at any moment, and that your race or background or preferred language is sufficient to make that happen,” Landan said.
CASA, a local organization that advocates for immigrants, also talked about the lawsuit at the news conference.
“Masked and armed federal agents have flooded the streets of the nation’s capital, indiscriminately arresting without warrants and without probable cause,” said Ama Frimpong, CASA’s legal director. “This racial profiling is unacceptable, and it is illegal.”
Flavio added that immigrants contribute a great deal to the U.S.
“We work, we build, and we contribute with honor. I ask for respect for our dignity and our rights,” Flavio said. “Our only crime is dreaming for a better life for ourselves and our families.”
WTOP’s Abigail Constantino contributed to this report.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
CASA co-founder and CTO Jameson Lopp has called into question claims that well-regarded computer scientist and cryptographer Hal Finney was Satoshi Nakamoto.
In a speech at the Plan B Forum held in Lugano, Switzerland, Lopp shared his doubts over claims that Finney, who died in 2014, was the man behind the pseudonymous character Satoshi Nakamoto who invented Bitcoin (BTC).
Lopp acknowledges Finney’s contributions to Bitcoin. Besides Satoshi, Finney was the first person to download and run the Bitcoin software.
However, the CASA CTO highlighted a race held on April 18, 2009, in Santa Barbara, California, in which Finney was a participant. The race took place as an email was being sent back and forth between Satoshi Nakamoto and developer Mike Hearn.
According to Lopp, it would have been impossible for Finney to participate in an email exchange while focused on a race. Not to mention, there was a Bitcoin transaction confirmed during the same time as this race.
“You see, for the hour and 18 minutes that Hal Finney was running down this course in Santa Barbara, we can be quite sure that he was not at a computer or other electronic device where he would have been able to do what Satoshi was doing.”
Jameson Lopp, CASA CTO
Lopp also noticed something strange when looking into a Swiss IP address linked to Hearn, which lines up with the time he worked at Google’s Swiss offices. It provides further proof that Satoshi was active while Finney was out racing.
He did a side-by-side comparison of Nakamoto and Finney’s code styles and noticed a lot of differences in their line spacing preferences and overall personalities. With this information, he questioned how one person could have such different coding identities.
“I’m a software engineer. I know code. And their code was not the same. And in fact, we can look at Hal’s reusable proof of work code. We can compare it to the very first release of the published code for Bitcoin, and several large differences are immediately apparent.”
Jameson Lopp CASA CTO
While Lopp’s investigation does not provide definitive proof, it presents an interesting case against Finney as Bitcoin’s creator. The cryptographer died in August 2014 having predicted that Bitcoin’s price could one day go as high as $10 million.
State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) has emerged as the top performer among public sector lenders in loan and deposit growth in percentage terms during Q1 FY24.
The deposit and advances of the Pune-based lender recorded almost 25 per cent rise, the highest by any public sector bank during the April-June quarter.
With a growth rate of 24.98 per cent, the gross domestic advances of the bank rose to ₹1,75,676 crore at the end of June 2023, according to published quarterly numbers of the public sector banks (PSBs).
It was followed by UCO Bank with 20.70 per cent growth, while Bank of Baroda with 16.80 per cent and Indian Overseas Bank with 16.21 per cent growth were at third and fourth spot, respectively.
Country’s largest lender State Bank of India stood at fifth spot with 15.08 per cent rise in domestic advances growth.
However, SBI’s total loans were about 16 times higher at ₹28,20,433 crore, as compared to ₹1,75,676 crore of BoM in absolute terms.
In terms of Retail-Agriculture-MSME (RAM) loans, BoM has the highest growth of 25.44 per cent followed by Punjab & Sind Bank with 19.64 per cent and Punjab National Bank at 19.41 per cent on Y-o-Y basis.
With regard to deposit growth, BoM witnessed a 24.73 per cent growth and mobilised ₹2,44,365 crore at the end of June 2023.
Bank of Baroda was in the second place with a 15.50 per cent growth in deposits (₹10,50,306 crore), while Punjab National Bank recorded a 13.66 per cent increase at ₹12,67,002 crore, according to published data.
BoM retained top position in terms of garnering low-cost Current Account and Savings Account (CASA) deposits with 50.97 per cent followed by Central Bank of India at 49.56 per cent.
Helped by high growth in loan and deposits, the bank’s total business also recorded the highest growth of 24.84 per cent at ₹420,041 crore, followed by Bank of Baroda at 16.10 per cent at ₹18,62,932 crore at the end of June 2023.
