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The expenditures are enormous: $16 million toward a failed paint job on the National Mall reflecting pool. $5 million for bronze horse statues. Over $900 million toward White House renovations. Trump’s plans to “make D.C. beautiful again” are costing taxpayers well over a billion dollars and leaving local community members wondering who the renovations are really for.

These forced renovations by the administration are affecting more than landmarks and monuments. In Washington, D.C., a large portion of community parks are governed by the National Park Service and are included in federal land. These parks have become ground zero for local resistance to Trump’s hasty makeover of the District.

Malcolm X Park, also known as Meridian Hill Park, is located in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 1, one of the most diverse and densely populated wards in the city. The park has been a historic hub for organizing, public service, and unifying community gatherings. The park’s namesake came from Malcolm X’s history of organizing at the green space; in 1969, four years after his passing, Black activists including Angela Davis called for the park to be named in his honor.

In recent months, the park has fallen under federal siege. In August, Trump’s National Guard deployments, dubbed “Make D.C. Safe and Beautiful,” turned a year old. Since the federal takeover, about 9,700 troops from across the country have been dispatched to the nation’s capital, and around 4,600 were deployed across D.C. as of August 3. In addition to the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the National Park Police, and other policing agencies, the National Guard has turned once beautiful green spaces into militarized traps.

“[The parks] are federal property, so federal laws apply. And federal law is different from D.C. law on some things,” said Alex Dodds, campaign director and co-founder of Free DC, a fiscally sponsored project of Community Change that advocates for the dignity of the residents of D.C. FreeDC has also used Malcolm X Park as a hub for organizing a resistance movement to the Trump administration’s expanded project of policing.

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“We have seen several instances over the last year during this time of dramatically aggressive federal policing, where people are getting arrested for basically having a picnic,” Dodds told Truthout.

Since Trump’s return to office, federal police have increased arrests for public consumption of alcohol (open containers) and open-air cannabis use in community parks. In D.C., possession and consumption of cannabis is decriminalized on private property. While it is not legal to use cannabis in public in D.C., the consequences are much more minimal than federal law mandates. Public use of cannabis according to local law is classified as a misdemeanor and could result in a citation. But federally, cannabis remains illegal and classified as a controlled substance, and possessing any amount of cannabis on federal land can land you a year in prison on the first offense. You can cross a street in D.C. and pass between these jurisdictions, making it easier for federal police to take advantage of these confusing legal differences in favor of harsher penalties.

“We have seen several instances over........

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