Tag: ICE

City Council, immigration, Jails, King County

As City and County Consider Banning New ICE Facilities, Local Jails Are Exempted from Seattle’s Ban
Alexis Mercedes Rinck (l) and Teresa Mosqueda (r)

By Erica C. Barnett

City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck’s proposed legislation to bar new detention centers in Seattle, originally introduced in February, has been delayed and amended to accommodate other council members’ concerns about prohibiting new local jails even temporarily, as the original legislation would have done. The new version of the bill, which would explicitly exempt jails from the moratorium, went up online yesterday.

A brief recap: On February 13, Rinck announced legislation that would ban new detention centers, as well as jails, in the city of Seattle for one year. The bill, announced in tandem with King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda’s similar legislation prohibiting detention centers in unincorporated King County for a year. Both proposals contains an emergency clause to illustrate the urgency of passing the ban; in December, ICE quietly posted a solicitation for contractors to build a new 1,635-bed detention facility in the Seattle area.

Legally, because of the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, federal law trumps state law—meaning that ICE, putatively operating in compliance with federal law, can violate any or all of the local and state laws blue cities and states put in their way. But laws like regional bans on detention facilities—and other anti-ICE legislation, including an executive order from Mayor Katie Wilson barring ICE from using city property  and a proposal from Mosqueda that will have the same effect for county land—can create friction, Rinck said.

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“We still will have a law on the books, and if they try to challenge our decision, we will see them in court over this,” Rinck said. “It does force a conversation.”

Both bills are based on local land use regulations. They argue that any new detention center could have major impacts on “water, sewage and wastewater, transportation and parking, public safety, and public health” and that a moratorium would provide time to create permanent legislation on detention centers.

“Here at the county, we have explicit authority in our statute to ensure that land is being used in the public’s interest,” Mosqueda said. “Any detention center in King County is going to not only disrupt the local community, but it goes counter to King County’s interests in making sure that we’re promoting safety and well-being.”

Both bills are classified as “emergency” legislation, allowing them to move forward without the usual committee process. On both councils, emergency legislation requires seven of nine votes to pass—which gets us back to why Rinck’s proposal exempts jails from the one-year moratorium while Mosqueda’s does not.

According to multiple city council sources, at least two council members indicated that they would vote against Rinck’s proposal if jails were included in the ban, even though King County has no current plans to build a new jail in Seattle, or anywhere, in the near future. Banning new jails for a year could create an impression that centrist council members who will be up for election next year, including Maritza Rivera and Bob Kettle, are soft on crime.

Rinck can afford to lose two votes, but not three, and several other council members’ votes can be unpredictable when it comes to legislation perceived as “progressive,” as any legislation proposed by Rinck, one of the council’s most progressive members, inevitably is.

Kettle, the chair of the council’s public safety committee, did not respond to questions PubliCola sent on Monday.

Mosqueda said on Tuesday morning that no one on the council had raised an issue about the inclusion of new jails in the ban, noting that her legislation does explicitly allow renovations at Echo Glen, a youth detention center in unincorporated eastern King County.

Rinck’s legislation will be up for a full council vote on March 10. She said the bill will “buy some time” for the city if ICE does propose building a detention facility here. “I think this is worth fighting over,” she said.

erica@publicola.com

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.