Ethiopian Immigrants Live With Fear, Anxiety In Washington

Ethiopian Immigrants in DC — Source: Amen Debretsion / other

On the sidewalks across the Washington, D.C., region, the sight of uniformed patrols and federal agents is enough to make some Ethiopian immigrants reach for documents they don’t carry — not because they’ve committed a crime, but because they don’t know what questions might come next or whether anything in their pockets will be enough to prove they belong.

This story centers voices that are often missed in U.S. immigration coverage.

While national debates often fixate on Latino communities, Black immigrants, including Ethiopians across DC, Maryland, and Virginia, describe a quieter crisis: living under constant anxiety, watching patrols, hearing of sudden detentions, and wondering if families will even know where they’ve been taken. What follows is a look at the policies and perceptions that fuel that fear and the resilience communities use to survive it.

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area is home to the largest Ethiopian community outside of Ethiopia, according to local archives and migration data. Estimates vary widely, but researchers believe that while about 35,000 residents were born in Ethiopia, the broader community of Ethiopian ancestry could exceed 200,000 people across D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

“When you walk on the street, even if you are legal, there are some questions you don’t like asked,” said A.G., an Ethiopian immigrant living in Fairfax, Virginia. He asked that his full name not be used because he fears retaliation or being targeted by immigration authorities. “Who walks with their passport every day? This is the fear for most people- you don’t know if you’ll be let go, or taken somewhere else until you can prove your citizenship.”

Across the District and its suburbs, Ethiopians describe checking over their shoulders, avoiding late-night commutes, and coaching young people on what to do if a parent doesn’t come home.

Policy contradictions deepen the dread. Recent DHS overstay data offers some context. In fiscal year 2023, hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant visa overstays were recorded, and certain African nations with high overstay rates are now being singled out by U.S. policy for extra scrutiny.

But public reports do not clearly specify overstay rates for Ethiopian nationals, and analysts warn that overstay statistics are imperfect due to gaps in exit tracking and visa category complexity. What this reveals is less about precise numbers and more about narrative power: governments increasingly invoke “overstay risk” as a justification for profiling, and that context deepens the stakes for communities like the one A.G. is describing.

For A.G., that abstract debate shows up as a concrete risk: an encounter on a sidewalk, a question from an officer, a demand for proof few people carry.

“Sometimes you don’t have ID cards in your pocket,” A.G. said. “You cannot walk with your passport all the time. If I tell them I have it at home, they don’t have to take me to jail. But what if they don’t believe me? What if they take me somewhere else until I can produce my citizenship?”

For many Black immigrants, immigration control and criminal enforcement blur together. As one legal analysis notes, “what was once a civil enforcement regime has developed alongside the modern criminalization, enforcement, and incarceration regime,” notes Harvard Law Review. Policing has become more of a negative and oppressive action towards immigrants in America. That overlap helps explain why routine encounters can feel punitive even when no crime is alleged.

Survey data reinforces the point. A KFF.org study found that most (55%) Black immigrants report worse treatment than U.S.-born people in police encounters. About one in three have been criticised for speaking a language, and roughly four in ten have been told to “go back to where they came from.” This discrimination compounds vulnerability.

Detention Fears

A.G. says the fear is simple. “They can ask for something I don’t carry.” He’s heard stories of neighbours taken for processing and held for days before families learn where they are. “It could be over a week,” he said. “People are taken and put in jail.” For him and so many others, the fear isn’t hypothetical; it’s a chain he can recite. Get stopped, questioned, fingerprinted, and then gone. “They could be taken to a different state,” he said. “You just don’t know.”

That fear isn’t confined to the Ethiopian community.

Across Washington, immigrant residents have reported an escalating sense of vulnerability since the federal takeover of the city’s police earlier this year. In the first 30 days of the Trump administration’s control, The Guardian documented widespread accounts of racial profiling, sudden detentions, and visible checkpoints that left immigrants afraid to leave home. Federal agents and ICE officers were seen conducting street stops and neighborhood patrols, reinforcing what many residents describe as a climate of intimidation. For Ethiopian immigrants already living with uncertainty over documentation and visibility, those policies have only deepened the sense that safety in DC. is conditional and easily revoked.

For many Black immigrants, immigration control and criminal enforcement blur together.

Community Voices

Abeenzer Taye, who lives in Northern Virginia, calls the Ethiopian story one of aspiration and patience.

“When young Ethiopians come, they want to go to school, they want to get educated,” Taye said. “The reason they come to America is because there are a lot of things back home that they don’t have access to. Most Ethiopians don’t bend the law. They don’t use shortcuts.”

Taye’s words cut through the noise of political debate to reveal what immigration looks like from the ground up, not as a threat, but as an act of faith. His description of law-abiding ambition challenges the stereotypes that have long colored federal policy, which often portrays African immigrants as risks rather than contributors. In a political climate where visa overstays and border fears dominate headlines, Taye reminds readers that for most Ethiopians, migration is about education, opportunity, dignity, and the slow, lawful pursuit of a better life. His perspective reframes the story from one of suspicion to one of perseverance.

In DC, Alem Woretaw points to the long shadow of paperwork delays.

“The typical wait that the government says is like two to three years to hear whether the status you requested to stay in the country is approved,” Woretaw said. “But there are folks that have been waiting for 15, 20 years to hear whether they are to get their papers.”

Backlogs make those stories plausible; some family-sponsored applications filed decades ago are still inching forward. Woretaw says the silence is cultural as much as it is practical.

“We don’t always share,” he said. “Something profound happens, and it stays a family story.” He also notes a particular pride: Ethiopia’s history of resisting colonization. “We carry that pride,” he said, “but it’s so distressing to carry that and come to a country because your country is not a home for you because your country is succumbing to neo-colonialism.”

Woretaw’s reflections reveal another dimension of the immigrant experience, not just fear, but exhaustion. His words expose the emotional cost of a system that demands patience from people who have already endured displacement.

The years-long bureaucratic limbo he describes turns legality into a moving target, forcing Ethiopians to live suspended between pride in their heritage and dependence on a government that may never answer. His comments about silence and pride speak to something deeper, which is a community that carries the weight of an uncolonized past while navigating a new kind of subjugation that is measured not by chains or conquest, but by paperwork and waiting.

Zelalem Asfaw, in D.C., says media narratives matter.

“The media is very biased, and because of that, every Ethiopian gets affected by that specifically,” Asfaw said.

Asfaw’s critique of media bias exposes a quieter form of harm that shapes how the public perceives African immigrants before they ever meet them. For decades, mainstream coverage of immigration has centered on Latin America, while stories about African migrants are either ignored or framed through crises like famine, war, or government fraud. When Africans do appear in U.S. media, they are often cast as victims of chaos or as nameless statistics, not as neighbors, workers, or citizens waiting. That erasure feeds the idea that African migration is exceptional or suspect. It is a distortion that filters into policy, policing, and public empathy. Asfaw’s point is that representation isn’t cosmetic; it determines who gets believed, who gets feared, and who gets forgotten.

Allan Ebert, an attorney who has represented Ethiopian immigrants for three decades, says structural bias underpins the immigration process itself.

He argues that politics shapes perception. When the climate is hostile, everything is harder to prove. “You see the lack of respect and belief in what the immigrant applicant is saying,” Elbert said. “A lot of the administration doesn’t want immigrants here.”

When credibility becomes a test of worth, immigrants are forced to prove not only their paperwork but their humanity. Political ideology seeps into administrative discretion, shaping which stories are believed, which are doubted, and which are dismissed outright. In a system built on subjective judgment, even the smallest hint of bias can determine who gets a future and who gets deported. For Ethiopian applicants, whose cases are filtered through cultural unfamiliarity and racial stereotypes, the demand to constantly verify legitimacy becomes another form of punishment.

Fear Persists, But So Does Connection

Even in a climate of fear, DC’s Ethiopian community remains one of the most vibrant and self-sustaining diasporas in the country. The city is home to hundreds of Ethiopian-owned restaurants, markets, churches, and small businesses. There’s an entire ecosystem that functions as both an economic engine and a social safety net.

Beneath that visibility runs an invisible network of care with clergy who translate legal notices, shop owners who lend money quietly, neighbors who check in on each other when someone disappears. These informal systems often do the work that policy fails to do by offering reassurance, information, and belonging.

Much of that help travels by whisper and trust, not through official channels. “Most people rely on word of mouth, even for professional help,” said Asfaw. He believes resources exist but remain fragmented: “There’s support, but it isn’t integrated.”

Community leaders echo that sentiment, describing a culture of mutual aid that has kept Ethiopian immigrants afloat for decades. It’s a blend of tradition, faith, and pragmatic survival.

“For many people, like myself or any other foreigner, the fear is always there,” A.G. said. “But our community is strong. If something happens, we stand together.”

Amen Debretsion is a junior journalism major at Howard University. He hopes to become a political reporter. He can be reached on Instagram at @amenezeikel

Dripped In Legacy: CultureCon, One Image At A Time