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The city of Renton is looking to ban the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) civil immigration activity from city buildings and property.
On June 1, the Renton City Council moved for the city administration to ban ICE from city-owned property. However, the public safety committee reviewed the issue and concurred with the staff recommendation that no further action by the city was needed at this time. On Aug. 17, the council concurred with the public safety committee. Councilmember Carmen Rivera had said at the time that she understands local law enforcement cannot keep ICE out of city-owned property but she thought they could at least mirror King County and post signage against allowing ICE operations.
“We’re saying that there’s nothing that can be done, and I just don’t believe that to be true because at least we can foster a culture of questioning immigrant and custom enforcement because in the end they’re ruining it for everybody,” Rivera said at the August meeting.
Councilmember James Alberson had said, because there is little police can do to interfere with federal law enforcement, the last thing they wanted to do was to put officers into a position where they are breaking the law. He did say there is a policy being put in place for all city employees to not aid ICE or allow them into any non-public city-owned property.
Councilmember Valerie O’Halloran said the committee report was to look into an ordinance, but that does not mean they are done with the matter.
“Staff is currently working on a policy to help guide our employees on what they can and cannot do, what they should avoid doing and especially, any type of physical encounter and or, again, putting themselves in harm’s way,” O’Halloran said. “So we’re not done with the topic. We have just determined that an ordinance is not the way to go about it because there’s absolutely no way of enforcing it.”
On Sept. 21, Rivera moved for the city to ban ICE from civil immigration activity on city property after she shared an experience of ICE harassing an American citizen in her own neighborhood.
“These agents are not professional law enforcement agents,” Rivera said. “They are doing law enforcement a huge disservice with their incredible un-professionality, their intimidation, the way they choose to operate, interact with anybody because there is no way you can tell by looking at somebody if they’re an American citizen or not.”
Councilmember Ruth Pérez said she is for protecting the rights of every person that lives in the country, but she is against giving false hope to immigrants looking for protection.
“So as long as we’re very clear that our job is to make sure that the agents are actually ICE agents, that the agents actually have an ICE order,” Pérez said. “We cannot do absolutely anything to prevent that at the City Hall. I don’t want immigrants to think, ‘If I go to city hall, nobody’s going to arrest me,’ because that false hope was given by the churches, and what happened is that people ran to the churches and then they were arrested no matter what.”
Alberson said if they had been able to pass an effective ordinance prior, they would have, and he is not in favor of putting in ordinances or bans that can’t be enforced.
“If it could move the needle in any appreciable way, totally for that,” Alberson said. “If we’re doing it to make people feel better, ultimately make people just simply feel better, fair enough. But if it’s to lead people to believe that something now effective has been done, I think that’s deceptive.”
Rivera brought up the case from July 26, where a 911 operator had instructed a driver, who was being followed, to go to the Renton Police Department, which was where the federal agents who were following him ended up arresting the man. Rivera said that if the city can make it a civil offense for ICE to operate on city property, similar to Washington’s mask policy, it can be another tool or extra barrier for those arrested.
Councilmembers Pérez, Ryan McIrvin, Rivera and Kim-Khánh Văn voted in favor of the motion. Alberson abstained from the vote because he felt they did not have enough information. He said he would like to know if banning immigration activity could open the door for civil litigation for someone apprehended by ICE.
