Category: immigration

immigration, Police

New Police Directive: “Be Respectful,” “Don’t Interfere” When Responding to Calls About ICE Raids
File:ICE Agents in Minneapolis After Shooting.jpg
Masked ICE agents face off against protesters in Minneapolis. Image by Chad Davis, via Wikimedia Commons

By Erica C. Barnett

If you see someone being grabbed off the street or attacked by ICE in Seattle, feel free to call the local police—just don’t expect them to do anything about it.

After ICE agents killed Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, SPD’s policy office sent out an unsigned directive telling officers what they should do when responding to calls about ICE activity in Seattle.

In the January 15 email, the department, headed by Police Chief Shon Barnes, directs officers to exercise caution and beat a quick retreat if there’s any possibility they may be in danger, adding that cops should in no circumstances “interfere in federal immigration enforcement actions.”

After responding to a call for assistance and attempting to make contact with the caller, the memo continues, police should  “[a]ttempt to validate the status of the individuals appearing to be law enforcement by respectfully requesting official identification, when safe and feasible.”

“If there is reasonable concern that approaching may escalate risk, officers should maintain distance, request additional resources, and coordinate verification through dispatch or a supervisor,” the memo continues.

If the situation with federal agents results in any “collateral public safety impacts”—safety concerns that are unrelated to the ICE enforcement action itself, such as “traffic disturbances or demonstrations”—police are supposed to call for backup; if not, the directive tells them to “leave the scene to avoid any unnecessary entanglement with immigration enforcement.”

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City law, and existing SPD policy, already direct police not to assist or participate in immigration enforcement activities. The  directive effectively clarifies that cops should not intervene in any ICE activities, and should err far on the side of caution even when “respectfully” asking masked ICE agents to identify themselves.

In a statement, SPD said the directive is “a document that is designed to provide everyone access to the same information. In this case, this new directive act as a guide on how to handle this specific situation by gathering policies that are already in place.” They added that “nothing in the directive released today strips officers” of their legal responsibility to intervene by providing medical aid to victims of violence, including violence by ICE agents.

Local police departments don’t have jurisdiction over federal agents—they lack any official authority to stop immigration enforcement officers from detaining people and hauling them away. (They also lack the authority to say no if federal agents subpoena surveillance footage—one reason SPD’s claim that they protect the privacy of people in neighborhoods under 24/7 police surveillance falls flat).

Even so, SPD’s policy appears to be primarily about protecting officers themselves when Seattle residents call seeking help—not about addressing potentially illegal actions by federal agents against people living, working, or just passing through Seattle.

“Leave the scene,” “avoid entanglement,” “ask respectfully”—those may be the best policies for police to protect their own personal safety. But they’re a far cry from what Barnes had to say about federal immigration last June, when he vowed, “I will probably go to jail and be in prison” if Trump sent in federal troops to crack down on protests. Barnes got national praise and criticism for the comment.

immigration, Mayor Harrell, Police

Harrell Says SPD Will Stand Strong Against Federal Invasion; SPD Promotes Former Deputy Chief Who Said Aurora Sex Workers “Enjoy It”

1. Mayor Bruce Harrell signed two executive orders on Wednesday that he said would “ensure that our city is prepared and resilient” if President Trump sends federal troops to Seattle.

The orders, however, are largely symbolic and include recaps of policies that are already in place—like a ban on police cooperation with immigration enforcement—or under consideration, like an increase to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs’ budget, announced last month. One of the orders sets up a task force to come up with response plans if Trump does send troops to Seattle. The other highlights future legislation that would prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks to hide their identity and ban “staging and operations of federal civil immigration enforcement activities on City property to the extent permissible by law.”

City employees will also be required to go through training on the “protocols and procedures for complying with state and local immigration laws,” including the Keep Washington Working Act, which prohibits city employees from assisting in immigration enforcement.

Hamdi Mohamed, director of the city’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, said the two orders “send a clear message that we will use our full power to stand up and protect our communities—ensuring the Seattle Police Department and the city cannot and will not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement, creating a task force across departments who will meet with and coordinate responses with community organizations like OneAmerica, and writing new laws and directives to meet this moment to ensure that our local law enforcement prioritizes the safety and first amendment rights of our residents and community members.”

But Seattle, like all cities, has little power to actually stop federal troops from wearing masks (as they have in California, which banned masks) or enforcing immigration laws in public spaces—as they have in Chicago, whose mayor declared all public properties “ICE-free zones” earlier this week.

Harrell dismissed various potential scenarios, including a situation in which police cooperate with federal troops or ICE, as “hypotheticals,” saying, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Six Seattle police officers participated in the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the January 6 insurrection, including two who were fired after video evidence surfaced of them breaching the Capitol—the largest known January 6 contingent from any US police department. A 2021 video that surfaced in 2023 showed a large “Trump 2020” flag displayed at SPD’s East Precinct, along with a mock tombstone bearing the of name a young man, Damarius Butts, who was killed by SPD officers in 2017.

Harrell said there were no specific indications that Trump planned to send federal troops to Seattle, but said he wasn’t “worried” about “poking the bear” with his announcement.

2. New East Precinct SPD commnder Michael Tietjen isn’t the only controversial figure to receive a promotion and accolades from new police chief Shon Barnes. (As we reported yesterday, Tietjen was promoted to oversee policing in the city’s longtime LGBTQ+ neighborhood despite a history of misconduct that included an incident in which four officers allegedly harassed a trans woman.)

Three weeks ago, Barnes also announced the promotion of Marc Garth Green as commander of the West Precinct.

The job is a step back up the ranks for Green, a former deputy chief who was publicly demoted by former police chief Carmen Best after he made offensive comments about sex workers while defending SPD’s decision to focus on arresting sex workers rather than johns. During a heated exchange with then-councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, Garth Green said many of the women walking up and down Aurora are there by choice because they “make money and enjoy it.” He also suggested that sex workers themselves were contributing to gun violence in the area.

Garth Green was eventually reassigned to Harbor Patrol—the same division to which Tietjen was reassigned in 2007, after he and a partner were caught on video choking and allegedly planting drugs on a man in a wheelchair.

Later that same year, Garth Green and other SPD officers were accused of giving preferential treatment to an SPD captain who was caught trying to pay a woman for sex on Aurora.

In his announcement of four promotions  (the other two new captains are Kevin Runolfson and Heidi Tuttle), Barnes said, “Their advancement is not only a reflection of personal achievement but also a testament to the values of dedication, integrity, and leadership that we need at every level of this department.”

City Council, immigration, Mayor Harrell, Police, Privacy

City Expands Police Surveillance Despite Overwhelming Opposition, Concerns About Civil Liberties

By Erica C. Barnett

After dozens of Seattle residents testified in opposition to legislation authorizing the expansion of 24/7 police camera surveillance on Tuesday—the bill, which PubliCola has covered extensively, passed the full council on a contentious 7-2 vote—several councilmembers used most of their speaking time to chastise and criticize their constituents for speaking out against the bill—apparently more offended by overwhelming public opposition than by the likelihood that federal law enforcement officials will use the camera footage to crack down on vulnerable Seattle residents.

The city just created the surveillance “pilot” last year, but is already expanding it before the city can collect any data about its effectiveness.

The new law, introduced just weeks after the city rolled out live camera surveillance in the Chinatown/International District, downtown, and along Aurora Ave. N, expands the pilot to include a swath of the Central District centered on Garfield High School, the area south of downtown around the stadiums, and a section of Capitol Hill that includes the Pike-Pine corridor and Cal Anderson Park. It also incorporates hundreds of cameras maintained by the Seattle Department of Transportation into the Real Time Crime Center, a facility at SPD headquarters where police monitor the cameras in real time.

Opposition to the new surveillance program is widespread. Candidates who came out ahead in this year’s primary elections, including mayoral frontrunner Katie Wilson and City Council Position 9 frontrunner Dionne Foster, have opposed expanding the pilot program as have the ACLU of Washington, Northwest  Immigrant Rights Project, Asian Counseling and Referral Services, and the city’s own Community Police Commission and Office for Civil Rights.

They argue, with substantial evidence, that CCTV cameras don’t help prevent or address violent crime, that they violate people’s civil rights and foster an environment of fear, and that provide new opportunities for the Trump Administration to subpoena or otherwise obtain camera footage to target immigrants and people seeking abortions or gender-affirming care.

This week, 17 members of the state legislature wrote to the council opposing the expansion of police surveillance at a time when the Trump Administration is targeting blue cities, including nominal “sanctuary” cities like Oakland, with subpoenas for surveillance footage and other data that cities have no authority to deny the federal government.

Seattle, similarly, will have to comply with any federal subpoenas for surveillance footage. The fact that local laws prohibit police from volunteering this information does not make the federal government subordinate to Seattle’s local regulations, any more than it has in other blue cities that have policies prohibiting police from voluntary cooperation with ICE and other federal agencies.

Meilani Mandery, a resident of the Chinatown/International District, said that since the council approved 20 cameras on nearly every intersection in the area, “people can’t enter or leave the neighborhood without being surveilled. You did this to a poor immigrant community that remembers the racist surveillance of the 20th century, when the government surveilled Japanese Americans before sending them to concentration camps, and the cops had books of Chinese mug shots to profile and justify police violence.”

Expanding police surveillance, Mandery continued, “rolls out the red carpet for ICE to kidnap our families, friends and neighbors. Do we not deserve safety?”

Only a few people have spoken out, over numerous public meetings, in favor of the cameras and the expansion of the Real Time Crime Center, and emails to the council have been overwhelmingly opposed to the program. Nonetheless, several council members claimed that they have heard directly from constituents who haven’t provided public comment that they support the cameras, particularly constituents of color who believe surveillance will make their neighborhoods safer.

Debora Juarez, an appointed council member who represents North Seattle, dismissed opponents of the legislation as people “with a lot of god damn privilege.”

“You can go on and on about the Trump regime. We all watch the news. We get it. We know. I’m not going to go with fear. I’m going to go with facts. I’m going to go with subject matter expertise.”

In fact, the city’s own Surveillance Working Group recommended strongly against the cameras and Real-Time Crime Center before Trump was elected to a second term, noting that they had the potential to violate people’s Constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure as well as the First Amendment, which protects the right to protest and assemble in public. Public comments, the group noted in its report opposing the original program pilot, “were overwhelmingly negative and voiced a serious concern and lack of trust within the community as a whole of the Seattle Police Department’s plan to expand the use of surveillance technology.”

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Although the police department has said repeatedly that the cameras are effective tools for preventing crime and solving crimes after the fact—and the legislation itself says the primary purpose of surveilling Seattle neighborhoods “is to prevent crime [and] collect evidence related to serious and/or violent criminal activity”—some council members suggested the idea that the cameras would prevent crime was a red herring invented by opponents of surveillance.

Calling himself  “one of the few people on this dais who understands the technology,” appointed Councilmember (and former SPD crime prevention coordinator) Mark Solomon said, “Cameras are not a crime prevention tool. They’re an investigative tool.”

“I hear folks say this isn’t going to do anything—well, tell that to family whose house has gotten broken into, because while the stats say that things are getting better, stats don’t mean nothing when it’s your house has gotten broken into, or when it’s your neighborhood that’s been shot at,” Solomon continued. “And I hear that from the people in my neighborhood. I hear that from my community, who are the ones who are saying, yeah, if we had cameras that could help.”

Council President Sara Nelson and public safety committee chair Bob Kettle were also quick to dismiss overwhelming public opposition to the surveillance expansion. Kettle said he had just talked to 24 people in Interbay, and “every single one of those 24 people, those two dozen people, would have been happy to have a CCTV program. So this idea that [there is] overwhelming opposition is false.”

The bills the city is passing to expand police surveillance, Kettle continued, “are not standard bills. They do not reflect what you see in other jurisdictions across the country and they are definitely not red state, red county American bills. They are Seattle bills.”

The council rejected several amendments that would have limited the expansion of surveillance to fewer areas of the city and created new evaluation requirements that would help the city better understand the impact of the cameras on civil rights and crime. In a mostly symbolic acknowledgement of public concerns, they did pass an amendment authorizing the city to pause the cameras for 60 days if the federal government issues an order to turn over camera footage for immigration purposes.

Only Dan Strauss and Alexis Mercedes Rinck opposed the legislation. In comments prior to the vote, Rinck said it was reckless to expand surveillance of Seattle residents at the precise time when the Trump Administration is targeting progressive cities and without any data showing that the pilot program has accomplished any of its goals.

In San Francisco, she noted, the police department itself shared data from automated license plate readers with police from red states, “in contradiction to all of their local policies and state laws that purport to shield their citizens.” Similar incidents are occurring across the country, including in Denver, Nashville, Washington, D.C., and cities across California, she noted.

“Sure, no city has done it exactly the way that we have. We have different contractor providers and different companies, and we all have different safety protocols,” Rinck said. “But this is happening across the board. Do we know with 100 percent certainty what happened in each of these cases that caused their systems to fail? Why do we think we’re so special, so across all across the US, in other liberal and blue cities where communities live, hoping that their government that their government will serve and protect them?”

“I do not look forward to the day where we have to sit back up here on this dais and deal with the aftermath of our data being handed over to other actors,” Rinck continue. “I do not want to be sitting up here in the future telling people telling people, ‘I’m sorry we put your community in danger,’ when we could have stopped it today. It is a matter of when, not if, our data will be handed over to the federal government and other actors.”

Rinck, currently the council’s only consistent progressive, could soon be joined by Eddie Lin (District 2) and Dionne Foster  (Position 9). Debora Juarez, appointed to replace District 5 short-timer Cathy Moore, will be off the council next year, and the incumbents who won in the backlash election of 2023—Rob Saka, Joy Hollingsworth, Maritza Rivera, and Kettle—will be up for reelection in 2027.

If some of the council’s more conservative members are replaced by progressive challengers that year (and if Wilson defeats incumbent Bruce Harrell, as she seems on track to do), it’s likely that some of some of the heavy-handed police-state legislation passed by this council will be reversed—though not in time to prevent any privacy and civil-rights violations that take place as the result of expanded police surveillance between now and then.

City Hall, immigration, Media

No, the Library Did Not Tell Employees to “Capitulate to Fascism”

By Erica C. Barnett

A story posted earlier today in the Burner—an online publication started by former Stranger writer Hannah Krieg—claimed that the Seattle Public Library was “capitulating to fascism,” as Krieg put it on X, by forbidding frontline workers from recording ICE raids in library buildings on their phones and telling them that ICE does not need warrants to barge in and make arrests.

Citing a memo titled “Protocols for Immigration Enforcement: Compliance and Readiness at The Seattle Public Library” as well as an all-staff email from library director Tom Fay, the post also claimed that library staffers can’t ask ICE for a warrant to make arrests, and that SPL will not protect any employee who’s arrested for allegedly interfering in an ICE arrest.

What’s more, according to the article (written by a guest writer but posted by Krieg) the memo itself was apparently written by someone every progressive hates—Republican City Attorney Ann Davison.

Banning staffers from asking ICE agents for warrants? Prohibiting people from recording arrests on their phones? It all sounds quite alarming—and it would be, if any of it was true.

The Burner, which represents itself as independent journalism with a lefty twist, seems to have forgotten the journalism part. I got a copy of the memo, which was not linked in the post, and it took about five seconds to realize that at least one of the statements the publication represented, between quotation marks, as quotes from the memo … is not actually a quote from the memo.

These misrepresentations would just be sloppy if the memo actually did tell library staff that ICE never needs a warrant or that people can’t record ICE on their phones, as the story explicitly claims. But the memo (which is 12 pages long) basically says the opposite, so the misquotes are really misinformation.

The false quote from the memo is “Do not record interactions on a phone.” In fact, the memo (and a followup email to staff from Fay) emphasizes that it is legal to record ICE interactions, but that employees should use their personal devices to do so and understand the risk that a cop might get excited (as they do) and decide to arrest them. Describing a shitty fact about police behavior is a far cry from the saying that the “City will not defend, support or represent them in any legal case,” which is how the article describes the policy. The memo does not say any of that.

“This guidance does not intend to to strip library staff of their citizen right to film law enforcement,” Fay wrote, adding a link to  guidance on recording police officers from the Freedom Forum, a First Amendment advocacy group.

UPDATE: On Wednesday, in an email to staff that also advised staff about the Burner’s inaccurate reporting, Fay said the library’s guidance not to record on city-owned phones was “the result of a misunderstanding that occurred at a citywide training in February.” That was the only part of the guidance that was specific to SPL’s protocols; now, the rules at the library are identical to those for all other city of Seattle staff.

This change won’t actually impact any frontline library staff, because none of those staffers have city-issued phones. In fact, just 76 of the library’s more than 650 employees have phones, including regional managers, supervisors, gardeners, and maintenance workers.

The story also says the memo directs staff that “warrants [are] not required” for ICE to make arrests. “[A]rrest warrants definitely are required except in limited cases (the memo does not acknowledged this),” the piece claims, contrasting the library’s policy unfavorably with a Seattle Public Schools policy that requires ICE to present a warrant before entering school buildings.

In fact, the memo dedicates several pages to the library’s protocol for barring ICE officers from all non-public spaces unless they can present a judicial warrant; explains the difference from a judicial and administrative warrant and notes that the latter isn’t sufficient; and gives staffers a script to use if an ICE officer tries to get into areas where they aren’t allowed without a warrant.

“Officers need a judicial warrant to enter and search non-public areas,” the memo says. (Emphasis in original.) “DO NOT consent/grant access to non-public areas. Please tell them the following: ‘You may not enter this non-public area, and I am not authorized to let you enter. I will notify Library administration, and someone will be coming to verify.” At that point, staffers are supposed to call their manager and document everything that happens.

Legally, ICE can make arrests in most public places, including libraries; schools were exempt under a federal policy that designated them as “sensitive” areas ICE needs a judicial warrant to enter. Although Trump rescinded that Biden-era policy in January, his executive order—which also covers churches, where the sanctuary movement began—is being challenged in court.

The library’s guidance comes directly from a citywide training on February 27 about how city employees should respond to ICE raids, among other topics related to immigration. The training was created by the city’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, which has a ton of other know-your-rights resources on its website.

More than 1,000 employees across the city took part in the training, which explained existing city policies for dealing with ICE (which have not changed, but have obviously become more urgent) and included resources from Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and the National Immigrant Law Center.

I posted obliquely about this on Bluesky earlier, and I see that since then, the Burner has posted a whole separate post that now includes a completely different two-page memo, and has changed the headline on the original post, which was “Seattle Public Libraries Tells Workers Not To Interfere With ICE Raids.” Once you tell people they should be outraged at the local library for violating the First Amendment and forcing staff to roll over for ICE arrests, and shout on social media that they’re basically fascists, it’s pretty hard to walk that back.

“Library memo describes citywide ICE policy for public buildings, developed by Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs” isn’t much of a headline, though. That’s because it isn’t much of a story.

Update Wednesday: The original story has been removed, replaced by a new piece by Krieg asserting essentially the same facts and with a misleading headline that still suggests the library has ordered staff to stand by passively and not ask for warrants when they are required, which is false. The story was purportedly taken down because it did not include “copies of the memos” laying out the city’s policy, but the new piece still doesn’t include the the 12-page memo laying out the policy, which includes a script for demanding warrants and barring ICE from entering areas of public buildings where they are not allowed to be. The new piece also argues that SPL should order its frontline workers to be confrontational toward armed ICE agents. By doubling down on the false narrative and failing to correct or acknowledge any errors, the new post does not address any of the the issues outlined below.

homelessness, immigration, Trump

New Federal Homelessness Contracts Appear Designed to Exclude Undocumented Immigrants

By Erica C. Barnett

New federal contracts for homeless services include a requirement that providers deny benefits to undocumented immigrants, King County Regional Homelessness Authority deputy CEO Simon Foster told the King County Council this week. Foster warned that the new restrictions, which have not appeared in previous federal contracts, could result in people losing services they already access and avoiding homeless providers for fear of deportation.

“We know that citizenship verification requirements have a chilling effect that extends throughout the community, and even documented individuals are less likely to seek help if they are afraid of the repercussions to themselves, their friends and their family,” Foster said.

The new language showed up in the KCRHA’s first 2025 grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program, which provides about 11 percent of KCRHA’s funding. In keeping with new, Trump-era boilerplate for other federal grants, the new language also says agencies must certify that they won’t use the funding in ways that “promote ‘gender ideology'” or violate several new executive orders, including one denying federal funds to “sanctuary cities.” A judge temporarily blocked the sanctuary city order on Thursday.

Under the terms of the contract, KCRHA would be required to “administer its grant in accordance with all applicable immigration restrictions and requirements, including the eligibility and verification requirements” from the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, better known as welfare reform. That law prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving federally funded services, with some exceptions whose interpretation is entirely up to the “unreviewable” discretion of the attorney general, according to the law.

In 2016, then-attorney general Loretta Lynch issued guidance affirming that homeless service providers could spend federal funding on programs that provide shelter, transitional housing, rapid rehousing, and outreach to undocumented immigrants. Under Trump, that guidance has been removed from HUD’s website.

The new rules also say that KCRHA, or the nonprofit agencies that provide services and housing (the language is ambiguous), has to check the immigration status of every person seeking housing, shelter, or services in a massive federal database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, or SAVE. According to the contract language, KCRHA “must use SAVE, or an equivalent verification system approved by the Federal government, to prevent any Federal public benefit from being provided to an ineligible alien who entered the United States illegally or is otherwise unlawfully present in the United States.”

KCRHA is currently considering its legal options, which could include suing the federal government. Earlier this month, the agency’s governing board held a lengthy, unscheduled executive session to discuss “federal funding impacts,” going into closed session under an exemption to the open meetings act that allows private conversations about litigation or potential litigation.

The agency, unlike the city or county governments, has a legal department of one—general counsel Edmund Witter. Although suing (or joining a larger lawsuit) creates legal risks, so would signing the grant agreement. If the KCRHA agreed to exclude undocumented immigrants from services and avoid funding “gender ideology,” it could open the agency up to legal liability from activist lawsuits. It’s easy to see, for instance, how providing shelter where queer and trans people feel safe would count as “gender ideology” under the new Trump administration’s rule.

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Alison Eisinger, director of the Seattle-King County Coalition on Homelessness, said SKCCH fully expects “to see attempts to insert irrelevant and odious requirements and restrictions on federal funds that keep people housed in our community” coming from the federal government.

“We have to make sure we can keep people safe, housed, sheltered, and helped regardless of where they were born, who is in their household, and how they pay their rent,” Eisinger said. “Local government and any philanthropic partners who concern themselves with housing and homelessness should be creating robust reserves to ensure that we are not at the mercy of the billionaire sociopaths.”

It’s unclear how any of this would work, in a purely practical sense. Searching SAVE to see if someone is in the country legally is expensive (the government charges for each search), and neither KCRHA nor nonprofit service providers currently have access to the database. Most service providers won’t want to be in charge of asking for people’s virtual papers as a condition of providing services, and the possibility of mixups—between people with the same name, for instance—raises major due process issues, according to a person familiar with the legal issues.

Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, a former director of subregional planning and equitable engagement at KCRHA, said immigrants, particularly new arrivals, were already apprehensive about accessing the homelessness system before Trump’s election, because of the fear of deportation and the stigma of being homeless.

“It’s a much more invisibilized homelessness experience,” Rinck said. “People naturally feel anxious about accessing any type of government services already,” she said, without having to prove their eligibility for a place to sleep at night. “I think the broad idea is that they’re just going to use any measure to prevent immigrants from tapping into any program or services.”

PubliCola has reached out to HUD’s regional office, as well as several organizations that could be impacted if the new restrictions go into effect, and will post an update if we hear back.

City Council, immigration

New Council Committee Shines a Light on Bleak Impacts of Trump Funding Cuts
Kids In Need of Defense managing director Jessica Castellanos

By Erica C. Barnett

As Trump’s funding cuts begin to hit local organizations that rely heavily on federal funds, Seattle officials have said little publicly to indicate they’re prepared for, or more than generally aware of, the deep cuts that are coming for every local organization that relies on federal funding.

With a new revenue forecast showing a dramatic drop in revenues from the JumpStart payroll tax and other funding sources, the city is behaving as if the coming shortfall was the only budget problem they need to prepare to address—ignoring the other side of the ledger, where federally funded programs are at risk for closure.

The council’s most recently elected member, Alexis Mercedes Rinck, said she started thinking last summer about the potential impact a new Trump administration could have locally. “It dawned on me one day that there was a [possible] reality where I won my election and Trump won the election,” Rinck said. “So I spent some time reading through Project 2025 and what the prospects were like for Washington State and they were really grim.”

After Rinck won in a landslide, she decided that the way to pull together all the information that was flooding council offices from organizations and people impacted by the barrage of new federal policies and funding cuts was to set up a committee where the whole council could get briefed, in public, on what was going on. “There’s efficiency, information symmetry, and transparency that I think the committee offers, and there’s so much happening in given day that I do think getting read in is an important starting place to talk about what we are going to do.”

So far, her Select Committee on the Federal Administration and Policy Changes has met twice—once for an overview of Trump policies impacting LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive health care access, and immigrants, and a second time to discuss how tariffs and federal funding cuts will impact housing construction, homeless services, and legal defense for immigrants. Upcoming meetings will cover transportation, emergency management, City Light, and other areas of the budget that stand to lose funds or become far more expensive. The committee, like the council’s other special committees on the comprehensive plan and the families and education levy, includes all nine council members.

During the second half of the most recent meeting, groups that provide legal services to unaccompanied minors talked about the elimination of all federal funding for their programs—including one, Kids In Need of Defense, that is being forced to shut down next month after 22 years.

A “welcoming city” resolution, sponsored by Rinck, would commit the council to include $300,000 in next year’s budget for immigration defense—$150,000 to expand the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs’ [OIRA] existing services, and $150,000 for direct legal assistance, enough to help dozens of people, including minors, avoid deportation.

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If the full $300,000 went just to legal defense, KIND managing director Jessica Castellanos said, it could provide representation for 60 kids.

“We are withdrawing from almost 250 children’s cases, and there’s only 55 of those cases that remain that we are not withdrawing from, and that is because of OIRA’s investment in the representation of unaccompanied children and immigrants in general,” Castellanos said. The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project also provides legal representation to immigrants and receives some of its funding from the city.

Committing in advance to even a small amount of funding could be a challenge in a year when the is facing huge, previously unanticipated budget shortfalls. Councilmember Maritza Rivera called the Trump administration’s action “hateful, irresponsible, disgusting,” but added that the council is going to be facing major budget challenges this year that will require balancing many different interests.

“We all know we have a budget deficit. The county has a budget deficit, the state has a budget deficit. So I think there’s strength in numbers and all of us working together to see what we can do,” Rivera said.

Rinck told PubliCola one of her goals with the committee is to impress on her colleagues the need for more revenue to pay for critical services that will otherwise vanish amid federal cuts.

“I only hope that my colleagues take that seriously— like, taxing the rich isn’t just a slogan, it’s actually the most practical and realistic solution,” Rinck said. “I’m committed to exploring every avenue to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share, and this committee is us taking steps toward us having those conversations.”

So far, council members have been showing up to the committee, which requires a quorum of five members to meet. (The original quorum was three, but Council President Sara Nelson changed it to be consistent with other special committees, which have also had occasional trouble making quorum.) “I’m certainly hopeful that my colleagues see the value that this committee can provide,” Rinck said. “We have a lot of leaders and experts coming it to brief us, and I would be very disappointed if we weren’t able to meet.”