Seattle seeks to expand its pushback against federal immigration enforcement

Seattle’s battle with federal immigration officials is getting even broader.The Seattle City Council is expected at its March 17 meeting to authorize a review of the city’s policies to ensure that the data of residents who participate in Seattle city programs is not given to any federal agency.
The sponsor of the legislation, Councilmember Dionne Foster, said at a March 6 city council committee meeting that the concern is that information on a city resident’s immigration status would end up in the hands of federal immigration officials.
“I wanted to bring this resolution forward because at its core, what it is doing is reaffirming that people should be able to access city programs and services without having to worry how any personally identifiable information might be used,” she said. “This is important to me because we know that in recent months, we’ve seen an increase in federal immigration enforcement and activity and how government data streams interact with one another.”
The city already has prohibitions on sharing the data with federal officials for residents who are participants in its programs, such as senior citizens and health and mental health programs.
“We are strengthening our protections,” Foster said, “and that we are taking a leading edge on that rather than waiting for problems to emerge.”
The resolution comes after a flurry of city activity since late January against the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.
While immigration enforcement action in Seattle has been on the rise, the city has not seen large scale actions that have occurred in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago.
New Mayor Katie Wilson fired the opening salvo on Jan. 29 when she issued an executive order barring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions on city property.
She also detailed protocols that will have city police use their patrol car video system and body cameras to record agents conducting raids and pass along information of potential misconduct to the city prosecutor.
The city council codified Wilson’s order into law on March 3, also detailing the installation of more than 600 signs on city property, including outside City Hall, telling ICE to stay away.
On Tuesday, the city council approved a one-year moratorium on new and expanded detention facilities in Seattle.
The Trump administration has said that it wants to aggressively expand the number of beds in the U.S. for detainees, from around 40,000 last year to 80,000 to 100,000 in 2026.
The Seattle region has only one ICE detention facility in Tacoma.
A new city council resolution ordering a review of city data sharing policies is almost certain to be passed by the city council.
The city council’s Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes, which is made up of all nine council members, approved the bill on March 6. Legally, however, the council has to vote on it again when they reconstitute as a city council on March 17.
Under the resolution, Wilson must finish the review to see if city rules need to be enhanced to protect illegal immigrants by June 30.
Representatives of ICE did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The expected approval next Tuesday of the review of city data sharing policies likely won’t be the last legislative measure on immigration.
Councilmember Ron Saka said at the March 6 committee meeting that he supported the review of Seattle data sharing to make sure the data is not shared with immigration officials.
But he said he wants another review soon to look at the security procedures being enacted by city vendors to protect the confidentiality of Seattle residents using city services.
He said if those vendors are “hacked,” the information could become public and be ultimately accessed by federal immigration officials.
“Privacy is important,” Saka said, “but how we protect it is important.”

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