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A MOTION related to current federal immigration enforcement practices and directing the clerk of the council to send a copy of this motion to the members of Washington's congressional delegation representing King County.

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                     WHEREAS, the Trump Administration's assault on communities in the name of immigration enforcement is eroding our constitutional rights and endangering residents, and

                     WHEREAS, immigration authorities are using increasingly dangerous tactics, such as engaging in unprovoked violence, pointing guns at civilians, and deploying chemical weapons, and

                     WHEREAS, in multiple cities, agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have violently arrested civilians, including U.S. citizens, and deployed chemical weapons without warning in residential areas, harming school children and even local law enforcement, and

                     WHEREAS, from September 2025 through January 2026, immigration agents have shot twelve individuals, including three who died as a result:  Silverio Villegas González, a father of two, in Chicago; Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, in Minneapolis; and Alex Pretti, a U.S. citizen and federal employee who served as an intensive care nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, also in Minneapolis, and

                     WHEREAS, conditions in immigration detention facilities are rapidly deteriorating with facilities dangerously overcrowded and detained individuals and advocates reporting medical neglect, substandard food, inadequate access to clean water, and overuse of solitary confinement, and

                     WHEREAS, about ninety percent of people being detained are in for-profit facilities, which have a long record of cutting corners on essential services to reap profits, and

                     WHEREAS, since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025, an unprecedented thirty-seven people have died in the custody of ICE, including several deaths that may have been preventable, and

                     WHEREAS, the federal immigration system is a civil system, not a criminal system, and immigration detention is intended to be non-punitive, as stated on ICE's own website;

                     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT MOVED by the Council of King County:

                     A.  The council calls for an end to the aggressive and dangerous surges of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and an end to improper U.S. Border Patrol deployments in communities across the country, both of which are undermining public safety, endangering the health and safety of residents, unduly harming children and vulnerable adults, and violating the legal and constitutional rights of American citizens and immigrants and refugees.

                     B.  The council calls on the United States Congress not to provide any additional funding for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") without including meaningful and significant guardrails to rein in the agency and how it operates in communities.  The council expresses support for guardrails that would:

                       1.  End lawlessness in enforcement including by requiring DHS to get a judicial warrant, stop using masked agents for immigration enforcement actions, and prohibiting enforcement at sensitive locations;

                       2.  End detention abuses by ending the use of private, for-profit detention prisons, prohibiting funding for facilities that threaten the health, safety, or due process rights of detained people, and restoring access to bond hearings; and

                       3.  Rein in DHS by ensuring independent investigations of lawlessness and violence perpetrated by immigration agents and meaningful consequences for agents engaging in unprovoked violence and violations of individual’s constitutional rights, including mandatory referral for excessive use of force, in-custody deaths, and firearm discharges.

                     C.  The council calls on Congress to deliberate a plan to restructure DHS to bring more accountability to this sprawling agency, to ensure that DHS's essential national security and public safety functions, including cyber security and emergency management, can be separated from immigration enforcement, and to completely rebuild immigration enforcement agencies from the ground up to stop the culture of lawlessness and ensure guardrails and accountability.

                     D.  The clerk of the council is directed to send a copy of this motion to the members of Washington's congressional delegation representing King County, which

includes both U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives from the first, seventh, eighth, and ninth congressional districts.