♪♪
-Welcome to City Inside/Out.
I’m your host Brian Callanan.
President Trump has called immigration
into the United States a national emergency.
But here in Washington state,
that set off a different kind of alarm.
-We are deporting illegal alien criminals from
our country at record numbers,
and we're getting them the hell out of here fast.
We don't want em.
-The federal crackdown on immigration
has sent shockwaves through local communities
and the U.S. job market.
-The impacts to our state
and national economy are shown
by major shortages across industries.
-State and city leaders are scrambling
to protect Washingtonians
as new restrictions on illegal
and legal immigration affect our region.
-Whoever you are and wherever you come from,
if Seattle is your home then this is your city.
-With hundreds of thousands of immigrants
being rounded up without due process
and fatal shootings of Americans
by ICE agents during recent protests,
how prepared are Seattle and King County
to handle a local crackdown?
-I think it's hard to say
that we are completely ready
because this has been an absolute moving target.
-Our panel weighs in.
-You can't
minimize the level of harm that that's caused.
-We need to get the dollars out there to help.
-The human
and economic costs of major changes
in federal immigration policy;
That's next on City Inside/Out.
♪♪
Welcome once again to
City Inside/Out on the Seattle Channel.
I'm Brian Callanan with you.
And here
to discuss this very important topic,
we have a great panel with us here.
I would like to introduce
Cuc Vu, the director of Seattle's
Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, OIRA.
Welcome to you.
-Thank you.
-Also with us, Matt Adams, the legal director
for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.
Good to see you again, Matt. -Happy to be here.
-Also with us, Vanessa Torres Hernandez,
the integrated advocacy director
for the ACLU of Washington.
Appreciate you being here. -Thanks for having me.
I wanted to start this conversation
by really centering on
what immigrant communities are going through right now
locally during this federal immigration crackdown.
Cu you work with immigrant communities across
Seattle, a city where one out of five
people was not born in this country.
What kind of immigration
enforcement is going on locally?
How are immigrants in Seattle reacting to that?
What are you hearing?
-I think in Seattle,
like many other cities across the country,
we witnessed what happened in Minneapolis,
we witnessed Chicago, L.A.
and Portland.
And we're terrified
that those same activities may come to Seattle.
Donald Trump himself has called out
Seattle and welcoming cities.
So we remain on high alert.
But the truth is that
they operate in a way; they're very opaque.
They do things chaotically.
So...and I think it's intentionally that way
to keep us confused, keep our communities afraid.
And as a city,
we're going to take this time to do our due diligence
and put our resources
together, work with our community partners,
help them get prepared through, know
your rights education, family safety planning.
We're about ready to announce an investment
of $4 million that was added and
that will probably be coming up
in the next couple of weeks. -Great.
-But overall, it's
anybody's guess where this next
or if they will do anything at all.
-Yeah,
and I'm going to focus on a little bit
more of that work that you're going
to be doing in a bit. But, Matt, let me go to you here.
The Northwest Immigrants
Rights Project provides
direct legal services to immigrants in our community.
So I want to get your take on what's happening.
I saw a recent report in The Seattle Times
that we are seeing more ICE arrests
in Washington,
a little more focused
in the Yakima area, it sounds like, but
definitely happening in King County, too.
Can you talk about this?
Is there an uptick of immigrants
getting deported from Washington state right now?
What's going on? -There certainly is.
We haven't seen the same level of intensity
as some of the other cities that Cu mentioned.
But for example, we have a detention center in Tacoma,
that the beginning of the Trump
administration, held 800 people
while they were in removal proceedings.
Now it's at capacity of 1500...well,
almost 1600 individuals.
And in fact,
they're arresting so many individuals
that they're often transporting
community members from Washington state
to Texas, Louisiana, other detention centers
because they don't have enough detention space.
So that right there shows you the magnitude
of the increase of of arrests, of detention
that's happening.
-Yeah.
And what are these immigrants telling you
when you're dealing with their cases?
What's it like?
-Well, so it's very discouraging.
And really what I think what's so frustrating
for them is that many, if not most of our clients
have no criminal record,
have family members who are U.S.
citizens,
have lived here for years, have steady employment.
-Sometimes they have kids who are U.S. citizens.
-Exactly and all of that is just disregarded
and they're not considered
for release as they would have been in the past.
They're held in detention and it's intentionally
in a way
that is trying to force them to give up on their cases
because they despair of being locked up for weeks,
months, not knowing when these cases
are going to conclude.
And many of them do, in fact,
give up on their cases
and just accept deportation because they can't bear
to suffer any more imprisonment.
-Wow, Vanessa,
before we get into some
specifics about the many legal cases
the ACLU has against the Trump
administration, let's look big picture.
What are your primary concerns
for immigrant communities locally as we see this
federal crackdown on immigration continue?
-You know, I think our concerns are,
frankly, for our entire community,
not just the immigrant
members of our community, because what we're seeing
with the Trump administration
is a is a willingness to disregard the law,
to disregard the constitution,
and to disregard the safety
of our community members in its pursuit
of trying to deport as many people
as they can possibly round up.
So that's led to an significant use of force,
not just obviously in Minneapolis,
as we've all seen, but also frankly, locally.
We hear reports of dogs being sicked on folks
who are being arrested, on people
being run over by ICE agents in their cars, of people
being denied lifesaving medical care
while they're in immigration detention.
And that puts all of us,
not just the folks who are the direct targets
of immigration enforcement at risk.
-You're going down a path
I'd like to keep going down if we could, because
many state and local leaders have pointed out
that these new federal policies
on immigration
really do affect all of us, including those
who are not recent immigrants
to the U.S., For example,
more deportations equals fewer workers.
We've seen some major job cuts
and some pretty tough economic news
over the past few months.
Who has a thought about that?
The larger
impact of this crack down on
our local economy or society as a whole here?
Any thoughts there?
-We've certainly seen that spread.
I mean, one of the things that I think doesn't
get enough
attention is the new administrations,
the Trump administration's just flat out
disregard of the law.
So when they lose in court,
they continue to act in the same manner.
They don't abide by the judgment of the court.
And that affects not just immigrants
who are the
subject of that court case, but it affects the overall
democracy here.
And you see that spreading out
beyond immigration cases
where the courts are disregarding judgments,
refusing to abide by rulings.
And it's really it's it's a major point of alarm
that we're at this point in our society
where there's genuine debate now whether the executive
needs to pay attention to the judiciary.
I mean,
are we still a democracy that's that's governed
by the rule of law, or is it the emperor has,
you know, gets to do whatever he chooses?
-Any other thoughts on that?
-Yeah, it's
the impact is beyond just the enforcement. It's
across the whole range of immigration.
And so you're seeing people who are
having their naturalization canceled.
100 people were affected by that.
You're seeing refugees denied entry,
even though they've gone through years of that.
-Right. -And waiting in line.
And organizations that support that
infrastructure are decimated
in their budgets. And so the the
the impact of this has just been so significant
to both our residents
but also the organizations that serve those residents.
-Vanessa, do you have any other thoughts on that?
-You know, I want to just pick up on
on a couple more things. Right.
Which is that ultimately
what the administration is doing is about power, right?
It is about the ability to act without any checks
and balances, without any regard for limits.
And that power applied to immigrant communities
can be used against all of us.
And frankly, we've seen that in Minneapolis. Right.
The targets of the violence in Minneapolis,
were first immigrant communities,
but that broadly extended to anybody who disagreed,
protested, witnessed the activity
of the administration.
And so I think we all have to be incredibly concerned
with the impacts of this crackdown,
not just because they may impact our neighbors,
but ultimately because the power
that the administration is attempting to
claim is power it will use against all of us.
-Thank you for that. Vanessa, let me stick with you.
I want to move on to what the ACLU is doing to respond
to the Trump administration.
The National ACLU organization,
of course,
has filed
cases focused on warrantless arrests by ICE officers
or the use of the
Alien Enemies Act to justify mass deportations.
But I'd like to talk local as much as we can here.
Are there policies you're advocating
for in Olympia right now
we can talk about, or maybe some court
cases in our state that you can discuss?
-Yeah.
So, I mean,
we are really fighting on almost every front we can.
And the ACLU works in the courts, in the legislatures,
and also in, you know, in our communities
to try to make sure that we are promoting
and advancing constitutional rights.
And so we've been doing an enormous amount of
know your rights training, capacity
building with communities across the state,
not just immigrant communities,
but also service
providers, schools, nurses, educators, hospitals,
really trying to make sure that folks understand
what their rights are with respect to interacting
with ICE agents and with police officers.
We supported
a number of bills in Olympia that really were designed
both to try to provide additional resources
to immigrant communities in our states,
supporting the continued provision of expanded
Apple health care for folks
who are ineligible to receive federal Medicaid
so that, you know, under this enormous
stress, members of our immigrant communities
are not left
without access to basic, life sustaining health care.
And we've also supported some limits on
the power of law enforcement
in ways that prevent at least the states resources
from being used to to feed the deportation machine.
-The mask,
I know, to make sure
the officers are not wearing masks.
-That's right.
So, you know, one of the features
we've seen in Minneapolis, right, is
is that ICE agents
and federal agents have really been
acting like a like a masked rogue
vigilante force,
unidentifiable or attempting to be unaccountable.
And that's unacceptable for Washington
lawmakers in Washington, law enforcement officers.
And it should be
unacceptable for everybody operating in Washington.
So we did support that legislation
as well as some other bills which did not pass
to attempt to clarify the obligations of sensitive
locations like hospitals and daycare providers
in dealing with immigration enforcement.
-Okay.
-The one other piece I'll pick up
-Please! -Very briefly
is that we've also been doing a lot of work
around the limitations on surveillance technology.
We know
that the administration is using access
to things like surveillance cameras,
automated license plate readers,
and access to state databases
as a way
to track people down and target them again,
both immigrants and protesters.
And we want to make sure
that we are limiting the flow
and the maintenance of that information
because the federal government
is weaponizing it against us.
-Very hot issue in Seattle right now.
Matt, can you talk about some of the advocacy,
maybe some of the litigation,
the NWIRP is involved in right now
related to the immigration crackdown,
or a lot more people asking for legal help?
What's going on?
-Yeah,
so given
the mass increase of people who are being locked up
in Tacoma
over the last six months, Northwest
Immigrant Rights Project has filed habeas petitions
on about 250 individuals
behalf, and we've secured
the release of the vast majority of those.
At the same time, we've filed
class actions both locally and nationally,
challenging these detention
policies of our classes have been
we've we've won summary judgment
in both of our classes,
both the local class and national class.
But in both cases faced this issue
where the government has then refused to comply
with the court's order and we've been forced
to continue filing habeas petitions.
And and again, it's not just
it's one thing that, you know,
they have an immigration policy,
but it's a
whole different thing to saying, well,
this is our interpretation of the law.
But when the court strikes it down, they continue to
push forward with this unlawful
interpretation of the law.
And, you know,
it's just a remarkable development
that I haven't seen in over 25 years practicing law.
On the other hand,
we have a class action, again, a nationwide
class action challenging third country removals.
We've had local community members who are native.
For example,
one of our clients from Vietnam,
he was deported not to Vietnam,
where Vietnam would have accepted him,
but to South Sudan.
And to this day, he remains in custody in South Sudan.
And this is all in complete disregard of the law.
And it's part
of this propaganda regime, this terror regime,
to basically
instill this fear in the immigrant communities.
And it's outside the bounds of the law.
And that's what's at stake here, is
whether the government is going to
be held accountable
or if they're able to do whatever they want
in complete disregard of the law.
-Thank you for sharing that, Matt.
Cu, can you give us maybe a sneak preview here
of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs
and what they're doing in the coming months here,
because you're getting this $4
million boost to your budget from the City of Seattle.
Where's that money going?
Can you talk about that,
what it's going to be used for? -Yes.
First of all,
that money was the result of community advocacy.
Dozens of
organizations and even more leaders
made a case to council successfully.
And Mayor Harrell
teed it up last year and Council made it on going.
And so we're working as fast as we can
to get this implementation plan out the door.
We listen to a lot of folks, and what we heard time
and time again is that people are afraid.
People said that they need more legal resources.
So a considerable amount of resources
will be going to legal representation.
And the the reality is that in Seattle,
we have 14,000 cases in Seattle immigration court,
and roughly 60% of them are unrepresented.
And so we want
to put that money where the greatest need is.
We're also looking at a body of work called
rapid response to something that we're already
supporting, like know your rights education.
I was on a I know your rights
virtual training.
-I see. -And
I tried to register in February, couldn't get on.
And then I finally got into March
and they kept it at 3000 people. -Wow.
-So that's what you're looking at.
Like the
the demand for this information
is just astronomical.
And understandably so,
because people are terrified.
So we want to support more of that.
And but we're also looking at supporting
the whole community
in ways that our immigrant and refugee residents
experience like
so the schools, small, small businesses,
other service providers like food banks.
-And people are afraid to go to these different places.
Yeah.
-And so we want to also put out
an RFP for small community grants
because we saw a proposal keep going in Minneapolis.
I mean, that was one of the
most inspiring things that we saw
was people organizing,
going out on the streets, braving the cold
just to help each other.
And that exists here in Seattle as well.
And we need to get the dollars out there to help.
And it could look like mutual aid,
could look like more training, but specific to
languages or neighborhoods.
We also are looking at
and if we we would be the first in the country
to put together some dollars for emergency assistance
or basic needs,
when your car gets towed, you have to pay a fee.
-Sure.
-So can't go to work or
a family member would have to go retrieve it
so we could help pay for that fee
or rental assistance or groceries,
any number of things that
people are experiencing as as barriers.
So that's kind of a quick snapshot,
and I'm just excited that this money represents
Seattle's values
and we're working very hard to try to get it out
the door as quickly as possible.
-Thank you for that.
I'd like to talk briefly about some of the things
the City of Seattle,
the state of Washington, have been working
on these different measures to try to push back
somewhat on the Trump administration.
For example, in Washington state,
there's the
Immigrant Worker Protection Act, which I know
you're working on, Vanessa, to advocate for.
There's also
also this measure you mentioned prohibiting
law enforcement officers from wearing masks.
In Seattle, more specifically,
police have been asked to monitor
ICE officers when they see them
to make sure they're acting professionally.
There's also an ordinance about putting a pause
on building new detention centers in the city.
Matt, can I go to you first?
What do you think about what
the state and city are doing?
What I'm trying to get to is
are there any other local measures, tools
you might need
that would make your work more effective?
-I mean, I think they're taking important steps
to try to, again, restore accountability,
because when we have
federal agents who swoop in with masks,
not even with oftentimes with marked uniforms,
you see six officers jump out of a van
and you wouldn't even know
they're officers, some are are in costumes.
And the other face masks, they're not even uniformly
with face masks. Right.
They bring in whatever face masks
they bought from their five
and dime that they think is funny.
You know, and it's frankly, it's terrifying.
Right? So they're busting car windows.
They're aiming weapons at children and adults
who are just sitting there at their car.
And it's trying to restore accountability, say,
no, your job is to serve the people.
You might be a federal officer,
but you're here to enforce the law,
not to violate the law.
And by creating
clear standards so we know who
enforcement officers are.
If we have our our local law enforcement
monitoring these scenes, then we're going to
have less likely to have these rogue officers
basically committing horrific crimes
that we've seen in some of these other cities.
So they are important steps.
There is more that can be done.
We here in Washington
have to be vigilant about making sure
that we are not sharing data that that can help
facilitate their work unless it's required by law.
And that's a big component, is making sure that we're
not just being lax, whether it's the DMV.
I mean, that's been one of our biggest
problems is is data being shared from DMV.
But it's also just ensuring that we're up to date with
what's going on and continue
to take these steps to require accountability.
-Yeah, Vanessa,
this is some of that idea about
these different measures with surveillance cameras.
You add something to that?
-Absolutely.
I mean, I think that what Matt is lifting
here is important
because what we've seen
is that the federal government
is refusing to play by the rules.
And as it is sort of pushing the boundaries
of of
what has been permissible practice,
Washington is really going to need to be adapting.
You know, we have policies which state that,
you know,
that the state should limit its data
collection, should limit its data provision
to federal immigration enforcement,
that unless it is required by law.
But the federal government's frankly, insidiousness
in the way that it is trying to access data
requires us to really be
as limiting as possible in terms of both
what is being collected and what is being shared.
And I think that we're going
to have to be more adaptive
in terms of shutting down some of these data sources.
And frankly, you know, every piece
of surveillance technology, every camera,
every automated license plate reader,
every piece of facial recognition technology,
all of that creates enormous risk
in this current climate.
And so taking a hard look at that technology
and really evaluating
what technologies we can shut down, what data
we just should not collect in this current climate,
because the risks are far too high for all of us.
-Thank you for that.
Could this idea of the state
and city doing some different things?
What do you think about that? Are there
other tools you need or what do you think?
-Absolutely. I think
besides a resource, this
we're also working to coordinate across
our municipalities.
So King County
announced $2 billion that they're going to roll out,
hopefully in the near future.
And the state is will know by probably mid-March
what its investments will be for the upcoming...
-And maybe some more resources for.
-Yes, exactly.
And folks are are looking at us
that are beyond the resources.
They want to know that we're there, that we support
their communities.
And so
Mayor Wilson has taken on several initiatives
that are high priorities.
So sending out a federal directive
to all city departments to get ready and to drill down.
So assigning staff
who will be on point, that should a surge happen,
that we know the communication channels
and how to court coordinate from the street level
up to the seventh floor of city hall.
-Yeah, it's not just police officers.
You're talking about.
also City employees
sometimes have access to this data.
I know the mayor is really concerned about that.
-And so this is a high priority for her.
And we've been hard at work to try to get things ready.
-Thank you.
I wanted to make sure
I drew attention to the fact that federal policy
is changing on illegal immigration
and legal immigration as we know it.
There's a travel ban on 38 countries,
according to the Council on Foreign Relations
right now.
Immigrant visa processing is shut down indefinitely
for 75 countries.
All asylum cases have been put on hold.
Matt, could you touch on this?
Is your organization taking on cases like this?
I'm thinking
international students or workers, maybe H-1B
workers, family
reunification, a lot going on here.
-Yeah, It's important to note from the beginning,
this anti-immigrant agenda of the Trump administration,
while they threw out all these terms
about illegal immigration,
that they've been focused on legal
immigrant communities. I mean, look no further
than their attacks on the Somali community
and their efforts to strip those individuals
of their legal status.
And all across the country,
in so many different communities...
And it's not just the Somali communities.
We've seen this with the Venezuelans. I mean,
you can just go on and on
about the different nationalities
where they've taken away temporary
protected status who are always attempted to.
There's a lot of litigation there.
They've tried to limit the work permits
for those who are here lawfully
and basically making life intolerable
for those who have complied with the law,
have obtained lawful status.
So this is not a attack, as the
administration would frame it,
against illegal immigration.
It's attack on immigrant communities.
It's trying to rewrite who belongs in our society.
It's really is a cultural battle
as opposed to anything to deal with immigration laws.
-Thank you for that.
And Vanessa, just briefly,
we're talking about people
who've been
trying to immigrate
and what they
thought was the legal way, but it feels like
it is a little bit of a moving target right now.
Are there any cases the ACLU is dealing with
when it comes to that?
-You know, there are
and I want to highlight kind of two things.
The first is, is
that the
administration is not just
changing the rules from under people,
but is also actually
exploring the possibility of stripping nationalization
from folks.
-That's right. Birthright citizenship going away, right? -Yes.
And both for birthright
citizenship and the case that is going
before the Supreme Court on April 1st,
the ACLU is litigating,
along with a number of partners
from across the country,
really challenging this notion
that the president can unilaterally redefine
the Constitution
and can redefine who belongs in this country.
And that's really an attempt to create a permanent
underclass of children who are born in this country
to parents who have followed the rules
and to say that they don't belong
and are not entitled to American citizenship.
They're also threatening to strip naturalization
from folks who have gone through
the legal immigration process
and say, actually, we we just don't
we don't believe
that you belong in this country anymore
and have launched massive investigations
in an attempt to identify folks to denaturalize.
And all of that is a real threat on the idea
that America is a country which welcomes
and frankly, depends
on the contributions of our immigrant neighbors.
-Thank you.
We need to wrap up.
This has been a great conversation.
I'm going to go down the line here.
Vanessa, I'll ask you first.
We haven't seen this huge, big headlines,
influx of immigration agents coming to our region yet,
but local leaders
are definitely getting ready for that.
I just wanted to ask, are we ready?
What are some of the challenges ahead?
-I mean, I think it's hard to say
that we are completely ready
because this has been an absolute moving target.
Right.
What the administration did in L.A.,
what it did in Portland, what it did
in Chicago, what it did in Minneapolis,
it varied a little bit every time.
And so we are attempting to to fight the unknown.
But certainly there has been
a lot of intentional work
both within government and outside of government,
in coordination with nonprofits
and legal organizations and labor unions and faith,
really to try to prepare,
particularly with the World Cup coming
and the potential influx that that may create.
So I think that we are trying as hard as we can,
and certainly we are going to fight back
if the administration shows up,
as it did in Minneapolis.
-30-second version, if I can, with you, Matt, are we ready?
What are your concerns?
-Well,
I don't think you can ever be ready, but we are doing
taking significant steps to be in a better position.
But you can't
minimize the level of harm that that's caused.
Whether it's Minneapolis, L.A., Chicago,
Washington, D.C. with the National Guard.
So all we can do is try to ameliorate that harm.
Okay. Thank you. Some final thoughts here.
Are we ready? Cu, is the big question.
-I echo my colleagues here.
But I want to also
make a point that there's something
that we all can do, whether in my official capacity
or are other guests here, and that is
we can all create a culture
in Seattle where people feel that they belong.
So I've shared with you some science
that says all are welcome here.
And if you would like to get a copy of that,
please contact our office OIRA at Seattle.gov.
There's also for business owners
and private property owners,
you can put signs up that say that that ICE
is not allowed to stage any enforcement activities.
And so reach out to us if you're interested in that.
And we can also walk you through
how to set those up successfully for your space.
-Okay.
Thank you very much for that.
Vanessa, Matt, Cu, thank you very much for joining.
All right. We'll be right back.
What are people saying on social media about changes
in federal immigration policy?
One person writes.
Another says,
We'd like to know what you think.
E-mail us at contact at SeattleChannel.org
or find us on social media.
Thanks for that input.
A big
thanks to Vanessa Torres
Hernandez, Matt Adams and Cu Vu,
who really appreciate you being here.
-Thank you. -Thank you, I’m Brian Callanan,
and we'll see you next time on City Inside/Out.
♪♪