Tag: immigration

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

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.”

City Council, Parks, Transportation, Trump

SoDo Housing Plan Advances, Republican City Attorney Says Trump Immigration Order Violates “Local Control,” Saka Says No to Restrooms, Yes to Cars
The city’s most deadly areas for people walking, biking, and rolling are in South Seattle, including Rob Saka’s West Seattle district.

1. A proposal from Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson to allow up to 990 units of housing near the city’s two stadiums as part of a new “makers’ district” passed out of Nelson’s committee last week, but it faces an uncertain future at the full council, where two staunch opponents—Bob Kettle and Dan Strauss—will make their case that allowing apartments in a historically industrial area will decimate the city’s maritime industry.

The Port of Seattle and maritime industry unions have argued that allowing people to live near the stadiums—primarily on First Avenue South—would add so many cars to the area that trucks moving to and from the industrial waterfront would get stuck in traffic, making Seattle less competitive with other port cities. They also argue that the proposal reneges on the city’s promise to preserve existing industrial zoning in perpetuity, and that it’s a dangerous and environmentally unhealthy place for people to live.

In a 13-minute speech, Kettle hit all the highlights of this argument, saying the area is vulnerable to a Love Canal-style environmental disaster, that the Port itself is vulnerable “in a cutthroat shipping industry,” and that the geology of the area, which was built on unstable “fill,” would leave residents vulnerable to liquefaction in an earthquake, even if the new buildings were built according to modern earthquake standards.

“How about if you’re walking your dog in this little area, in this little neighborhood, you know, what happens?” Kettle said. “You’re trying to play catch with your kid, or you’re trying to bring in your groceries—a code-enforced building is not going to help you when you’re out there walking the dogs.”

Proponents argue that the area hasn’t been industrial for years (besides entertainment businesses like the Showbox SoDo and a strip club, it’s mostly abandoned and underutilized warehouses), and note that hotels and offices are already allowed in the area under the industrial lands update the council passed in 2023. (And, of course, the maritime workers who oppose housing also work every day in the same liquefaction zone).

“If thought this would this was going to damage irreparably the port, or put it into a position within 100 years where it would not be a strong, viable entity, I would not be doing this,” Nelson said.

The proposal, which passed 3 to 2 (with Mark Solomon and Maritza Rivera supporting Nelson and Joy Hollingsworth joining Kettle in opposition), will go to the full council on March 18.

 

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2. City Attorney Ann Davison put out a statement last week denouncing efforts by the Trump administration “to coerce local authorities and to commandeer local jurisdictions into carrying out the duties of the federal executive branch, while punishing those who dissent.”

Davison is a Republican who was active in the “Walk Away” movement headed up by “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theorist Bradon Straka, one of the January 6 rioters who was later pardoned by Trump. She ran for City Council against Debora Juarez, lost, ran for lieutenant governor as a Republican, lost againagain, and became city attorney after defeating a police abolitionist in the backlash election of 2021.

Davison issued the statement after joining a lawsuit that accuses Trump of violating the Constitutional separation of powers by unilaterally directing the government to withhold federal funds and take legal action against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, like Seattle, that bar police and other officials from assisting with federal immigration enforcement.

Davison’s statement stuck mostly to the strict legal questions raised by the federal order (although it did take a moment to praise “our diverse, vibrant, and invaluable immigrant communities.”) “This is an issue of federal overreach into areas of local control,” the statement said.

The statement marked a departure for Davison, who has not previously weighed in on partisan politics. Whether Davison voted for Trump, Harris, or another candidate in 2024 is unclear; her office did not respond to a question about whether she supported Trump. Her past campaign donations include small contributions to former Republican secretary of state Kim Wyman and Joshua Freed, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who went on to head the King County Republican Party and condemned Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the January 6 riots.

3. City Councilmember Rob Saka took a couple of strong stands in the past week.

First, during a presentation about an audit that found deficiencies in the Seattle Parks Department’s cleaning and maintenance of park restrooms, Saka argued against expanding public restrooms.

“[M]embers of the public always want to expand the number of restrooms, not just in Seattle, but in LA and across the country … and I don’t—I’m not sure that’s the best approach here in Seattle at this point, at this juncture, unless and until we’re in a better position to make better progress on addressing the cleanliness and accessibility [and] properly maintaining our existing restrooms,” he said.

Had Saka been around five years ago, he might have been aware of a different audit from the same office—this one recommending that the city open more 24/7 restrooms, specifically to help people living unsheltered who have “extremely limited options to avoid open urination and defecation, especially during the night.” Had he been on the council the following year, he might have taken part in a debate over  whether homeless people deserved access to restrooms and running water during the pandemic (the city decided they didn’t, and homeless Seattle residents experienced repeated outbreaks of hepatitis A and shigella.)

Then, during a presentation on traffic violence earlier this week, Saka apparently felt compelled to respond to a comment made by Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck about her decision to live car-free. “I appreciate Councilmember Rinck’s point of view,” Saka said, but noted that even in dense San Francisco, where he vacationed recently with his family, people still have cars.

“As vibrant as their transit system is, I was struck by the fact that nearly every street, arterials and non-arterials alike, on both sides of the road, there was there was parking!,” Saka said. “Parking! Available on both sides of the street! [Which] again, highlights the importance of choice! These modes are a choice. And even in San Francisco, the second most dense city in our in our country, people still choose to drive.”

One thing Saka may not have noticed, especially if he wasn’t driving, is that it’s incredibly hard to find a parking space in most of San Francisco. There are simply too many cars for the limited number of spaces, and most neighborhoods have residential parking zones, restricting visitors to no more than a couple of hours. Except in areas with heavy car traffic (like downtown, where some parking lanes convert to driving lanes at rush hour), Seattle also generally has parking on both sides of the street.