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AN ORDINANCE related to how the county will honor civil immigration hold requests from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement for individuals in the custody of the department of adult and juvenile detention; and adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 2.15.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. King County was renamed in honor of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., and is a "home rule" government under Article XI, Section 4, of the Washington State Constitution. Under its home rule power, the county may exercise any power and perform any function, unless preempted by state or federal law, relating to its government and affairs, including the power to regulate for the protection and rights of its inhabitants.
2. The enforcement of civil immigration laws has traditionally been, and continues to be, the responsibility primarily of the federal government. Since 2002, immigration enforcement operations have been carried out by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, which was, before 2002, known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
3. Since the 1980s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been apprehending noncitizens arrested and detained by state and local criminal justice systems through numerous enforcement operations, primarily through some variation of the Criminal Alien Program. Under the program, federal agents use booking and other information provided by local law enforcement agencies to target noncitizens in local agency custody for the placement of administrative immigration detainer requests that can result in a direct transfer upon release of noncitizens from local custody into immigration custody for initiation of removal proceedings.
4. In 2008, Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security to expand efforts to target noncitizens with serious criminal convictions for apprehension and rem...

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