Activists want action on ICE. Tacoma city leaders say options must be realistic
Activists and city leaders disagree over whether Tacoma has done enough to stand against federal immigration authorities – tensions that came to a head at this week’s City Council meeting.
The Pierce County Immigration Alliance, or PCIA, has been rallying outside Tacoma city hall ahead of council meetings since early January, calling for city leaders to take stronger action to condemn federal immigration authorities and the presence of the Northwest ICE Processing Center on Tacoma’s Tideflats. The group drafted a resolution outlining its demands and has called for the council to approve it or work with the group on drafting revised language that the council would be more likely to approve.
Members of the PCIA turned out at the council’s Feb. 10 meeting and spoke during the community forum portion about their demands. When speakers continued to applaud and cheer during the comment period despite Mayor Anders Ibsen’s requests not to, the council took a brief recess – a rarity for Tacoma City Council meetings.
Rie Guerrero, a member of PCIA, told The News Tribune in an interview on Feb. 11 that City Council members agreed to meet with the group but were slow to do so until the PCIA rallied outside city hall and blocked traffic. The group eventually met with council members Sandesh Sadalge, Olgy Diaz, Deputy Mayor Joe Bushnell and Mayor Anders Ibsen. Guerrero said the council members told the PCIA that they weren’t willing to agree to the demands PCIA outlined.
It’s “incredibly disappointing for us, because we had been going into that meeting assuming it was really going to be a good faith negotiation on ways that the city could be more responsive, and also ways that we could come to something together,” Guerrero told The News Tribune.
City leaders say that’s not the case. Ibsen said the council wasn’t resistant to meeting with the PCIA – it just took time to coordinate council members’ schedules. He described their meeting as a “give and take.”
“We didn’t promise them the moon and the stars about doing everything they wanted, but it certainly was not a blanket ‘no,’” Ibsen told The News Tribune. “We just wanted to be real, while also being open to constructive ideas and what could be accomplished.”
Sadalge agreed. Council members did not tell members of the group that the city “can’t do anything” about ICE, he wrote to The News Tribune in a statement.
The city isn’t able to address all the demands the PCIA has in its resolution, and some of them the city has already addressed, Ibsen said.
The resolution included a call for the city to demand the “immediate cessation of immigration enforcement activity” by the Department of Homeland Security in Tacoma. Ibsen said the city can’t do so.
“It would be unethical, and it would be a waste of everyone’s time, not to mention dangerous, for us to over-promise things that could put people in harm’s way, that we were not lawfully able to do,” he said.
The resolution also called for the city to report its policies on penalties for city employees who collaborate with immigration enforcement. Ibsen said the city already has a policy to not assist federal law enforcement “unless it’s directly related to a crime.”
He also pointed to legislation that council members have testified in favor of in Olympia, including House Bill 2597, which outlines remedies for violations of constitutional rights that take place during immigration enforcement.
“There’s always more we can do, and we’re open to any options,” Ibsen told The News Tribune. “Those options just have to be lawful and realistic. We’re always open to dialogue that’s constructive.”
The PCIA also has asked, separately from the resolution, for the city to revoke the business license for GEO Group, which runs the Northwest ICE Processing Center under a contract with the federal government. The detention center most recently has been the subject of a lawsuit that alleges guards abused and assaulted detainees at the center.
“Just because GEO happens to hold a federal contract where they get a lot of their money doesn’t mean it’s not a business that’s operating in our jurisdiction, and doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be subject to the same exact laws that we would subject a construction company or a massage parlor to with regards to how it conducts its business,” Guerrero said.
Sadalge said federal law “strictly limits” the city’s authority when it comes to restricting the actions of the federal government.
“The courts have established a clear boundary that prevents the City from closing a federal facility through local licensing,” he wrote. “Put simply, under the U.S. Constitution, federal operations take precedence over local regulations.”
Ibsen said doing so could politicize business licenses. Revoking GEO’s business license could pave the way for a conservative-majority City Council to revoke business licenses for gay- or immigrant-owned businesses because of personal feelings about the business owners, he said.
Guerrero recognized some of the actions the council has already taken, including the immigration resources webpage that the council put out late last month – but said it isn’t enough. She pointed to strong statements that city leaders in places like Minneapolis have made condemning ICE, or a move the city of Seattle made last year to allocate $4 million to programs that support the city’s immigrant and refugee communities.
Guerrero acknowledged Tacoma’s money troubles – the city has faced a multi-million dollar structural budget deficit in recent years – but said there has to be a way for Tacoma to take similar action.
“We also know that there’s money somewhere,” Guerrero said. “There’s money that we can find somewhere.”
Guerrero said the group will continue to show up to City Council meetings .
“We’ve been in this fight for 20 years,” Guerrero said. “Some of us have been in this fight, or similar fights since the Vietnam War, and we’re going to keep showing up and keep demanding justice for our community.”
