(The Center Square) – Spokane’s latest proposal targeting federal immigration authorities is, according to the only conservative left on the city council, basically virtue-signaling, political theater aimed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Spokane City Council majority hasn’t shied away from “efforts to combat ICE.” Last year, it passed a measure reaffirming what many call the state’s sanctuary law, with Councilmember Paul Dillon ripping up a U.S. Department of Justice memo threatening to withhold federal funding for adopting these laws.
Dillon and the majority have passed measures since then, attempting to ban ICE agents from entering certain events without a warrant. He proposed “immigration enforcement free zones” just a few weeks ago, and joined Mayor Lisa Brown on Tuesday in forwarding a new zoning ordinance aimed at ICE.
Councilmember Michael Cathcart said they are just pandering to their base.
“Like 90% of things that happened at city hall, I find out with a press release,” he told The Center Square. “Look, if you want great theater, skip the playhouse and come to city council — I just think we’re doing a lot to try to put out signals, but not actually accomplish anything.”
Dillon’s “immigration enforcement free zones” will come up for a vote on March 2, as will the mayor’s “emergency ordinance” to prohibit private property owners from leasing to ICE for detention purposes.
Dillon said he sees a potential for violations if ICE were told detain someone in an office space for over 24 hours, which would violate the detention facilities zoning proposal. He argued that this isn’t about immigration enforcement, but rather protecting civil rights and reining in the Trump administration.
“This is making Spokane safer, because people will know that properties within the city are not being used to detain people. The concerns of either neighboring jurisdiction, Spokane Valley or the state of Idaho, we can’t control what happens,” Dillon told The Center Square. “What we can do is control what happens inside our city limits, and that’s what we were elected to do — we were elected to govern.
The majority could fast-track the mayor’s ordinance for a vote next Monday, but Dillon told The Center Square Friday that the plan is to wait another week. The mayor’s policy advisor is scheduled to give a briefing during the council’s committee meeting on Monday, which lists potential action for March 16.
If approved, Dillon’s first proposal would prohibit federal agents from using “city property” as a staging area for civil immigration purposes. Brown’s proposal would remove detention facilities from the list of allowed conditional uses outside the essential public facilities process. It wouldn’t affect who can lease private property in the city, just what they use it for, so field offices and other facilities are in the clear.
The press release Brown’s office issued Tuesday to announce the proposal took direct aim at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE, despite neither being directly mentioned in the ordinance.
“What really just pisses me off is the misleading way that this is coming forward,” Cathcart said Friday.
“This is 100% clearly in their minds about responding to Donald Trump and immigration,” he told The Center Square. “I think it’s an attempt to try to thread the needle between what they can legally do.”
Brown’s proposal relies on land-use laws, which Cathcart said do allow the city to take these actions, but he thinks the administration is omitting its motives in the actual ordinance to avoid violating the federal supremacy clause. The ordinance says it’s necessary to protect commercial property supplies.
Cathcart doesn’t think the ordinance will change anything and doubts that ICE is planning a detention facility in Spokane. Dillon told The Center Square on Wednesday that DHS is seeking 10-year leases and that this ordinance is intended to prevent ICE from potentially using those spaces for detention.
“The U.S. Government is seeking competitive lease proposals for as-is, fully-finished and furnished office space in support of administrative operations for law enforcement,” according to an opportunity soliciting leases capable of supporting 70 personnel in various cities, including Spokane and Boise, ID.
Dillon said it has been hard for the city to get information on how long ICE is holding people in its field office in Spokane. Cathcart said that if the city tried to enforce Brown’s ordinance, it would likely fine the landlord, which could create other legal issues if the owner then tried to terminate the lease early.
While Cathcart previously cited concerns that measures like this may invite lawsuits against the city, he now agrees with Dillon that what the city is doing isn’t inviting federal intervention. However, he doesn’t agree that ordinances like Dillon and Brown’s proposal make the city any safer for residents.
“These sorts of statements tend to be more inflammatory than they are helpful,” Cathcart said. “Not to question or to try to really get into their motivation, but I think it’s really more about trying to send a message that we’re ‘hashtag resist,’ and less about, ‘hey, we’re trying to calm fears and reassure.”
