Select Committee on Federal Administration & Policy Changes 3/5/2026

Good afternoon.

The Select Committee on Federal Administration and Policy Changes Committee meeting will come to order.

It is 2.03 PM, March 5th, 2026. I'm council member Alexis Mercedes Rink, chair of the committee.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll?

Vice Chair Kettle.

Here.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Present.

Council Member Foster.

Here.

Council Member Juarez.

Council Member Lynn.

Here.

Council Member Rivera.

Present.

Council Member Saka.

Here.

Council Member Strauss.

Here.

Chair Rink.

Present.

Chair, there are eight members present.

Thank you so much.

And Council Member Wiles is excused until she joins us.

We will now move to the approval of today's agenda.

I'm hearing if there is, pardon me, I move to adopt today's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded.

I'm hearing no objection.

Today's agenda is adopted.

Well, hello and welcome everyone.

We have a very robust discussion planned ahead of us today, so I'm going to be keeping my remarks brief.

On today's agenda, we have three items.

The first is a briefing discussion and vote on Councilmember Foster's resolution related to data sharing and data privacy.

We will then have two briefings, a federal response update from the Mayor's Office, Office of Intergovernmental Relations, and the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

and then we will have a report on federal immigration enforcement policies report from the Seattle Police Department in response to statement of legislative indent SPD 111S A2 enacted in the 2026 city budget.

Finally, as this is the first meeting of the Select Committee for 2026, for the viewing public, I'd like to note a couple of changes to the committee since we last met in 2025. The first is that we will be conducting these meetings quarterly, and the second is that we have a new Vice Chair, Councilmember Kettle.

Thank you for your partnership, Vice Chair.

Would you like to provide any remarks?

Note, I just think it's a great opportunity to walk through the pieces as we've been doing in meetings, but it's also important to do so from here on the dais.

And I was also thinking the difference here with council members, you know, Foster joining us.

And I think maybe Lynn too, I don't think you've gotten a meeting in.

So we have some new members here on the dais.

Thank you, Chair.

Great flag, Vice Chair.

Wonderful.

And with that, we will now open our hybrid public comment period.

Public comments should relate to items on today's agenda or within the purview of the committee.

Clerk, how many speakers do we have signed up?

Currently, we have three in-person speakers and zero remote speakers.

Great.

Each speaker will have two minutes and we will start with our in-person speakers.

Clerk, can you please read the public comment instructions?

The public comment period will be moderated in the following manner.

The public comment period is up to 60 minutes.

Speakers will be called in the order in which they are registered.

Please begin by stating your name and the item you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left on their time.

Speakers' mics will be muted if they do not end their comments within the allotted time to allow us to call on the next speaker.

The public comment period is now open and we will begin with the first speaker.

Thank you for that.

The first speaker is Julie Rawls.

I'm Julie Rawls, a disabled family physician and concerned citizen, and I'm mostly going to talk about Raining in Ice.

I am concerned at this point that bystanders are doing it on the fly.

People see what's happening.

We're compelled to monitor ICE, possibly intervene, as Alex Preddy did when a woman was shoved, and it cost him his life.

I've already sent you information about the New York Attorney General's beginning the Purple Vest Program to get trained bystanders officially with the Attorney General's Office to do this work, identified by their vests, so they, I just couldn't say, just go away, you don't belong here, just move along like they did in Bellevue, which was horrific.

That's another video that just makes me ill.

I would wanna ram ICE vehicles if I, I couldn't just drive by.

I would be so angry and upset and concerned.

But if they do observe, then who do they call?

I did hear, read this week, Mike Salon, who I despise, saying he doesn't want law enforcement working with other law enforcement.

To me, that's like a Catholic priest saying, I can't intervene about child molestation because that's a priest and I'm a priest.

That's out of line, and I'm a family physician.

Who the hell?

intervenes when we see malpractice, poor practices within a hospital or in a clinic.

It's your colleagues that are standing by watching it.

That's who needs to report it.

So there's a whole lot of problems with SPD, but I love our officers in the CID.

I go to the public safety forums once a month and they're like family and I cherish them.

And I met the cadets before the badge program.

They're adorable, but we need to have them part of the community for us.

not cover your ass like what my salon said.

The first thing is cover your ass.

We take care of ourselves.

No, you take care of us under the constitution and they're not doing it.

So if they're not gonna do it, let's look for special forces veterans in Seattle.

Just get some input, start doing something.

So we have physical force, turn off the electricity in the building, whatever it takes.

This needs to stop.

I'm out of time.

I wanna go on and on.

Thank you.

Thank you, Julie.

Next up, we have Jonathan.

All right, I'm Jonathan.

I am one of the co-chairs of the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression.

And I see I got two minutes here.

For me, that personally reminds me, when I think of Christian Nelson, I think that SPD left him to lay on the floor for 360 times as long as I am able to give public comment for.

and because of that I have severe doubts about SPD's ability to protect anyone other than themselves and I see when ICE comes that SPD is doing everything they can to keep themselves safe instead of the people who they're supposed to represent and my organization when Christian Nelson was murdered and Jack Pileli were murdered, we took up a campaign and this campaign is called our Justice for Christian Nelson and Jack Pileli campaign and some of the things that we want and demand is that when these cops do anything if they so much as leave the station.

The people should be able to decide every single aspect of how these cops come in to our neighborhoods because currently they're just occupying our neighborhoods.

They're bringing terror and they're murdering people.

and so with that frame in mind I know that SPD if they are not held accountable by the civilians through some sort of civilian police accountability board then that they will continue to kill and that they will continue to help ICE as they abduct people So with our organization, we are going to be taking up both of our campaigns and I'm really excited for that because these cops are, they're dangerous, they're criminals, they're running rampant and they need to be put on a leash.

So I'm grateful for this and to see in what ways SPD will bend to the will of the people because it's only time until they work for us.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Next up we have Daniel.

Hello, Daniel here.

Nice to see you all.

I'm going to be speaking a little bit, echoing Jonathan's points and then also on the issue of surveillance.

We got to meet with the staff from the mayor's office a couple days ago to learn a little bit more about Their stance on the CCTV cameras that we know are at risk of being tapped by ICE to be used for their raids and attacks on the people.

And it was very clear from this meeting that SPD and SPOG especially are essentially holding the city government hostage right now.

And so the concern of the SPD of not being able to use these cameras is completely overblown.

We already know that they do not actually help in preventing crime, certainly.

And even solving crime, it continues to prioritize criminal punishment over actually meeting the needs of the people.

We are demanding that the Mayor's office turn the cameras off now before they are placing people at risk of ICE attacks and really want to encourage the City Council to continue to pressure the Mayor's office to turn the cameras off for today.

I really hope that y'all are able to investigate more specifically within SPD.

What ways are they using the CCTV cameras?

What are they saying about how they're able to prevent federal law enforcement intrusions?

or any other safeguards that might be needed to really get to the bottom of how they're using the CCTVs and, yeah, encouraging all of you all to continue to push to turn the cameras off.

Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel.

Next we have Howard Gale.

I thought there were others.

Howard Gale, 36 District Democrats.

So I've already brought before you 50 times the proposals from the 36 District Dems.

I just want to point out a couple of things.

First of all, in the slide from last fall, there is an item that says, to have an SPD policy for ICE officers who use excessive force during an arrest or detention such that an SPD officer becomes compelled to comply with the RCW's peace officer duty to intervene.

That captures part of the spirit of what we said, and so it'll be fascinating to see what is offered today by the chief.

In terms of what the city is offering, I've gone through their slide deck, and it is absolutely nothing.

So I just want to...

give you, you know, what would be a comparison?

Imagine if we lived in a different universe where the federal government was coming in here on a regular basis setting fires.

They were actually arsonists setting fires.

And then we said, well, here's what the fire department can do.

They cannot help them set the fires, but we really can't do anything when they set the fires, because of mumble mumble mumble union, mumble mumble mumble Tenth Amendment, mumble mumble mumble supremacy clause.

This is what Mayor Wilson's administration, as someone just attested to, has told people.

They can't do it because of SPOC, they can't do it because of laws.

We have to have full transparency about why we're not doing things that are fully legal, things that are being done in Boston.

And lastly, I want to point something out.

It was only last May that we had Lieutenant Matthew Didier in charge of Cal Anderson of SPD enforcement for demonstrations.

And this is what he was captured on video saying before the demonstration started.

We're going in this time with guns blazing and all our pieces in place.

We are past talking to people.

We are here to fuck people up.

We are done with you guys, with those guys and the shit they're doing.

They've pushed the envelope and now they're going to get the full something.

Okay?

This is not acceptable.

We have to have in place policies that clearly outline what police should do and not leave ourselves in a position where it's- Thank you, Howard.

Thank you, Howard.

Thank you.

And our last in-person speaker I see here is Keiondre.

Make no mistake, Seattle politics have veered sharply left unleashing a storm that threatens to dismantle everything we built brick by brick.

SPOG is staring down its most brutal years yet, a relentless assault on our unity, our resources, and our resolve.

A quote by the new SPOG president, Kent Liu.

Now, we all know Mark Sloan got on that podcast and said, we aren't going to investigate ICE.

We're not going to be used as political pawns.

I had a meeting with some of the members from the transition team the other day.

It was Spog this.

It was Spog that.

The reason we can't do this and this and that is because of Spog.

It sounds like Spog is the one controlling the city right now.

They're not going to do their jobs.

They're not going to arrest thugs that go around kidnapping people, killing people.

Who's really in charge here?

Because it doesn't seem to be the transition team.

It doesn't seem to be the council.

If Spog can just go rogue and do whatever the fuck they want.

That is bullshit.

One of the first statements from Kent Liu as Spog president is worried about leftist politics and not the dissent that's about to come to Seattle in June.

That is bullshit.

If Spog isn't going to do their jobs, maybe Spog should not be around.

Thank you, Keandre.

Those are our in-person speakers.

I'm going to move now to our remote speakers.

Our first and only remote speaker I'm seeing right now is David Haynes.

Excuse me.

Cops are supposed to focus on fighting crime, not get caught up in progressive politics that fear-mongered locals who are living vicariously through whatever's going on on the TV about immigration and the misinterpretation.

It's like an innocent migrant is allowed to be here and should be properly vetted and protected.

Yet we see how progressives in certain LBGQT community want to take away any improvement on conducting war against the evil criminals who are destroying people's lives.

and it's a real concern.

They don't want any surveillance cameras, but you know, why is this not in public safety?

This seems to be like another button pushing favor for the voting blocs that want to hate on the federal government.

It's like we literally need the National Guard to stand up authorized encampments that focus people on breaking their addiction before they start moving into a house, shutting the door and getting messed up on free drugs for six months.

but we need a better improvement in the crime-fighting interpretations of what construes a criminal and not set aside all these crimes against humanity that are being listed non-violent.

It's like the police team is supposed to be working proactively with the federal government in constitutional policing and you are trying to create resolutions that are unconstitutionally manipulating the interpretations of what the cops are supposed to be focusing on that are pitting one against another to distract from the fact that you are still running interference for evil cartel member criminals who are conducting uncivil war between their drug pushing and their pimping in the waterfront and then the black and brown that rival on the 3rd Ave area.

But you all just want to keep creating construction projects to promote FIFO for six games to sweep people out of sight pushing people to a different part of the neighborhood, not addressing the criminal and the like mental health.

There are no additional registered speakers and we will now move on to our items of business.

Going to our first item of business, will the clerk please read item one into the record?

Item one, resolution 32194, a resolution reaffirming data and privacy protections for any person seeking or accessing city programs or services, requesting a review of the city's data collection and sharing practices to limit data exposure to the federal government and other local regional and state jurisdictions, and requesting that departments incorporate privacy standards into future contracting requirements, briefing discussion and possible votes.

Thank you.

Now, before we move into our briefing from central staff, I would like to invite the sponsor of this legislation, Council Member Foster, if you would like to say a few words before we dive into discussion.

Sure.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you for the welcome, Chair and Vice Chair, to start off the meeting.

I appreciate that.

I am excited to hear the introduction and the overview from central staff, so I'll just share a few words.

I wanted to bring this resolution forward because at its core what it's doing is reaffirming that people should be able to access city programs and services without having to worry about how any personally identifiable information might be used.

And, you know, this is important to me because we know that in recent months we've seen the increase in federal immigration enforcement and activity and growing concern about how government data streams interact with one another.

And at the same time, we are seeing that data systems across agencies and jurisdictions are becoming more interconnected than ever before.

That means that local data practices have broader implications than they once did, particularly when it comes to personally identifiable information.

So this resolution is about proactively reviewing our practices and ensuring that we are strengthening our protections and that we are taking a leading edge on that rather than waiting for problems to to emerge.

The resolution does a handful of things.

I'll give a quick overview, but I don't want to steal the fire from our team over there at the table.

So it asks for a review of our existing data collection practices, a review of our data sharing practices, it focuses on increasing transparency for the city council, and then it sets the stage for potential to strengthen our contractor standards.

And this is really important because the city interfaces with the public in our role, but we also interface when we are bringing on and hiring contractors to carry out work that's necessary for city business.

And we wanna make sure that we have the highest standards across the board.

So colleagues, I'm really looking forward to the discussion around this resolution.

And with that, I will hand it back to the chair and she'll give it to central staff.

Thank you so much, Council Member Foster.

I'm gonna turn it now to central staff.

Okay, for quick introductions, good afternoon.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha on Council Central Staff.

Good afternoon, Tommaso Johnson, Council Central Staff.

Good afternoon, Adam Sisic, Council Central Staff.

I'll go ahead and kick us off.

We are, we'll go to slide two.

We're here today to talk about the Welcoming City Data and Privacy Protections Resolution, as was just mentioned by Council Member Foster.

The purpose of the resolution is to reaffirm Seattle's commitment to protecting personal data for all residents, to ensure access to city services without disclosing immigration status or other personally identifying information that can make a resident vulnerable.

to reduce risks associated with expanding federal immigration enforcement and to strengthen transparency and accountability in data sharing practices.

We'll just go through the sections one by one.

So section one includes policy affirmations about what the city already does.

For example, city staff must not require disclosure of immigration status for access to services, and departments must have data collection practices that align with our city's privacy principles, which were adopted by resolution in 2015. The Council requests, according to this resolution, the Council requests the executive and departments review our current data collection practices to make sure they align with the city's privacy principles.

And we also request that, the Council also requests that the Seattle Municipal Court similarly review its data practices with particular attention to data collected and shared with the Criminal Justice Information Services.

Regarding the key privacy principles that I mentioned, they include that the city must collect only the personal information necessary to deliver services.

It must prevent misuse or unintended secondary use of personal data.

The city should safeguard residents from preventable harm related to data exposure and scrutinize what data is collected, how long it is stored, and any legal disclosure requirements.

Section 1A acknowledges that while city policy clearly addresses data sharing regarding immigration status and among agencies that are responsible for federal civil immigration enforcement, the resolution requests that the executive assess whether any personal or identifying data is shared with federal agencies, even if those agencies are not directly responsible for immigration enforcement.

The resolution also requests to limit data sharing unless required by law, federal funding conditions, or a valid judicial warrant.

The resolution also requests a report to council when federal data sharing is legally required and ensure no city resources are used for civil immigration enforcement except where legally mandated.

Section 1B, request that the executive notify the council promptly of any federal data requests and to report any data breaches that result in federal access to city records.

Section 1C, similarly to the request around the federal government, requests that the executive review sharing of personally identifiable information with other local and state jurisdictions and limit sharing unless legally required or tied to funding or based on a valid judicial warrant.

The resolution also requests the executive provide a report analyzing any vulnerabilities related to federal civil immigration enforcement access with regard to this data sharing with local, regional, and state jurisdictions.

And then I'll turn it over to Edan to talk about Section 1D.

So this section reaffirms the city's existing practice regarding protection of personal information during consultant contracting.

All consultant contract templates and standard terms and conditions language, which is managed by FAS, already states that city employees and contractors do not request or disclose any personal information or unnecessary information, including immigration status, which is consistent with the city's privacy practices and principles.

The language embedded in all standard contracting documents such as the model RFP states that contractors must immediately notify the city project manager before responding to any requests from a federal immigration agency and that no access to data should be provided until the city authorizes next steps.

Go to the next slide, please.

So the last section of the resolution for this asked the executive to review the current contractor policies and practices to ensure that they fully align with the city's privacy and responsible contracting principles.

It also requests that future contracts include strengthened privacy standards, which may involve updates to the existing responsible contracting policy, SMC updates, and guidance for contractors on secure data handling, including training.

Finally, the resolution requests that the executive report back to council by June 30th on its review, compliance efforts, and the guidance developed on privacy standards and secure data practices.

I'll pass it back to Jasmine for one last section.

And we forgot to put this in our slides, but there's also a section two here that just affirms that the city will comport with state law and ensures that nothing in this resolution shall be interpreted to limit or delay the delivery of public benefits services or lawful programs for eligible residents.

And with that, we conclude our presentation.

Thank you so much for that overview.

And as we move into questions, I do want to let the record reflect that Council Member Juarez has joined us online and is present.

Thank you for being here, Council Member.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

And with that, colleagues, questions and comments?

Vice Chair Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to, A, thank you for our central staff team, Ms. Morhawa and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Sessich for that presentation and for Council Member Foster for bringing this piece of legislation forward.

I think it's important, and it's really a set of pieces of legislation that we're working through.

We had one related addressing cooperation with federal law enforcement across city government, not just SPD, and I thank Council Member Rivera for that.

We just had one related to professionalism and standards, and we have another one that's coming through Public Safety Committee, a meeting on staging, very important, in alignment with the mayor and her executive order on that piece.

Chair, you know, with detention centers, and also one related to ALPR, where we're gonna mirror what we did with CCTV in terms of stand down to pause, if there is a federal intrusion.

And then this bill here, data and privacy protections, I think that's really important and with some potential others related to Keep Washington Working to ensure that the Seattle Municipal Code and the Revised Code of Washington, particularly with respect to this bill, the Keep Washington Working Law, that we're in sync.

And this kind of work is important and as a set shows that we're working through different pieces as related to federal law enforcement and the issues that it presents.

And so respect to this one, I think it's important to review because things change, so this is important.

It also shows, you know, partnership between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

So I look forward to, you know, in terms of my role as chair of public safety, this is a little bit separate, of course, to work through these pieces.

And then if there's any additional pieces to work together, if there's something public safety or with the select committee, follow on.

Because it doesn't have to be the set of seven bills that we're working on.

but it is a start and we will continue to work these pieces, particularly as the executive walks through the different elements from an operational perspective and they may need support.

So again, I just want to thank Council Member Foster for this bill.

Chair, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kettle.

I see a hand from Council Member Saka.

Thank you, Chair.

Excuse me.

First and foremost, I want to start off by thanking Council Member Foster.

Thank you for your leadership in putting this highly impactful, much needed piece of legislation together under such short time.

I'm excited to be able to move this forward and so it can start to have the impact that we all so desperately want and need.

Great, great piece of legislation.

And thank you to Jasmine Tomaso-Eden from our Council Central staff for this overview.

As a non-practicing former tech lawyer who previously advised on privacy and security matters in the digital context and space, I think longer term, I would like to see the evolution of this be where, because this legislation is based off of an incorporate specific Seattle privacy principles dated 2015. over 10 years ago.

In the digital privacy space, it's a rapidly evolving landscape, and since this piece of, the original basis legislation, the resolution in 2015 was passed by council, the GDPR came out, and GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation.

It became effective in 2018, and for the layman, it represents the best in class, in my view, represents the best in class, setting forth clear expectations and rights, for people and their data.

And it covers privacy.

When we talk about privacy, that generally refers to three things, how information is collected or gathered, how it's used, for what purposes, that includes storage and retention, and then third, how it's shared and under what circumstances, if any.

and so there's a lot of great privacy-conscious best practices and privacy principles that I think have been superseded that are reflected in the GDPR and similar legislation.

California has CCPA, a similar set of very privacy-conscious legislation.

In any event, I think the original standard longer term needs to be revisited by the executive and so we can make sure we're incorporating the best practices today.

That said, this is a great piece of legislation for us to move forward in the interest of the scope of the risk and the gravity of the problem as well.

Another area for further exploration is a former cybersecurity lawyer.

This obviously is intended to index very heavily on the data privacy aspect of just privacy and security, but I also think it leaves a little more to be desired in terms of data security and data safeguards and what kind of industry best practices is the city using or not using and its vendors that handle sensitive digital information.

That's very important as well.

And longer term, I think we'll, because we can't just, privacy is important, but how we protect it, how we protect sensitive information, sensitive data, very important as well, given all the breaches from various actors, nation states, cyber criminals, once information has been hacked, exposed, out there in the ether, online somewhere or on the dark web, the feds have access to that information too.

And so, again, longer term, I think we'll wanna have a more robust conversation about data security.

This is intentionally and appropriately, in my view, focused on privacy.

Data security is important as well.

Overall, excited to be able to support this today, and I wanna thank the sponsor, Council Member Foster, for bringing this forward.

so desperately needed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Saka.

Certainly appreciate those remarks and points about data security.

I'm not seeing any additional hands, and so I'm going to take this as my opportunity to express my support for this legislation and my excitement to vote on it today.

We hear time and time again over the past couple months concerns about data privacy and I really want to thank you for your thoughtful work on this legislation specifically when we're looking at the delivery of a report with findings from departments around practices will be really informative for future policy making and so I want to thank you again and if I'm not I'm not seeing any of their hands or seeing Anything else?

I'm going to move us to a vote.

So I move that the committee recommend adoption of Resolution 3-2-1-9-4.

Is there a second?

Second.

It is moved and seconded to recommend the adoption of the resolution.

Any final comments?

Great.

Will the committee clerk please call the roll on the committee recommendation to adopt the resolution?

Vice Chair Kettle.

Aye.

Council President Hollingsworth.

Yes.

Councilmember Foster.

Yes.

Councilmember Juarez.

Yes.

Councilmember Lin.

Yes.

Councilmember Rivera.

Aye.

Councilmember Saka.

Aye.

Councilmember Strauss.

Aye.

Chair Rink.

Yes.

There are nine in favor, zero opposed, and zero abstentions.

Thank you.

The motion carries and the committee recommendation that the resolution be adopted will be sent to the March 17th full city council meeting.

Thank you colleagues.

And with that we will now and thank you central staff appreciate it.

With that now we will move to item two.

Our second item of business will the clerk please read item two into the record.

Item two federal response update briefing and discussion.

Great, and as our presenters make their way up, and I'll give them a beat to get settled in and prepared, I'm gonna use this as an opportunity to thank folks who turned out for committee today.

Sorry we breezed past public comment, but I wanna thank everybody who's come out to provide public comment in person, folks who are tuned in online, I know there's a lot of care and concern for everything that is going on right now.

I know that's a big reason why we stood up this committee in the first place.

So we have a dedicated space where council is taking up these issues.

And so I wanna thank you for your engagement today.

And I think I bought us enough time for our folks at the table.

I'm going to ask you all to introduce yourself by stating your name and organization into the microphone for the record.

Thank you, Chair Rank and Vice Chair Kettle and Council Members.

My name is Kelsey Mescher.

I'm the Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Katie Wilson.

Good afternoon, Chair and Vice Chair.

Nice to see you, Council Members.

Anne Maher, Federal Affairs Director with her Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Good afternoon, Council Members.

I'm Koo Voo with the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Wonderful.

With that, I invite you to begin your presentation for today.

Great, thank you.

Today's presentation, we will speak to broader federal and state policy context.

We will also go through the city's approach to impacts and planning related to federal immigration enforcement.

And then finally, you will hear some initial planning related to the spend plan for the $4 million in OIRA funds.

We know there is high interest from community in this plan and to get the funds out the door, but we have plans to share greater details later this month at Chair Rivera's Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee.

Before we dive in, I just want to provide a little bit of context for this work.

This work is guided by the experiences of other cities, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, and others.

Mayor Wilson has connected with many of her peers in several of these cities, and we also had staff from our office visit Minneapolis to meet with organizations there and elected officials to express our solidarity and to take away lessons on how we can support communities here in Seattle.

Of course, the issue of federal immigration enforcement impacts all of us because we are a community, but it impacts our immigrant and refugee neighbors and our neighbors of color most of all, and this is who we are centering in our work.

And of course, this work is characterized by uncertainty, and so as such, we have made it a primary goal to be steady in our leadership, steady and measured.

As a part of this, our intention in the mayor's office is to be in close coordination with departments, council, and regional and state leaders.

So thank you for your partnership.

Thank you for your leadership in moving legislation through this body and for your continued collaboration.

And finally, we'll be going pretty high level here.

There's many more details underneath, so always happy to follow up after this.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to Annie to talk a little bit about federal and state policy.

Awesome, thank you, Deputy Chief of Staff.

Well, I'm really just here today to provide a quick reminder on what's happening at the state and federal level around immigration, and then we'll pass it off to Dr. Kuda, get in the weeds here.

But you'll likely remember that back in January, Congress was able to pass a majority of their funding bills to avoid a full government shutdown.

One bill that did not make it through was the Department of Homeland Security's Appropriations bill.

So as a result, they have been on shutdown since February 13th.

They did just vote again earlier today and that again did fail the Senate Democrats are continuing to refuse to vote for this bill.

They have a list of demands that they're looking for, primarily around ban on agents wearing masks, some enhanced training for officers, and a variety of other important things around warrants as well.

I do expect that this shutdown is going to continue on the DHS front, just given there's a little bit of a stalemate here.

That being said though, despite the shutdown, things aren't really looking a whole lot differently.

And that's primarily a result of the passing of HR1 back in the fall, which allocated $170 billion in funding for immigration and border costs, primarily around detention, technology, and border construction.

So despite the shutdown, ICE is still operating along with their agents.

And just last week, President Trump did reiterate his focus on immigration at the State of the Union.

While he didn't address Minneapolis, He did touch on a variety of problematic legislation, including Delilah's Law, which would bar states from granting driver's license to undocumented immigrants, along with the SAVE Act, Safeguard American Eligibility Act, which is the requirement of voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

So really just a reminder that these issues are really not going anywhere.

I think everyone is highly aware of the surge U.S. cities are seeing around the nation.

We're continuing to monitor where ICE officials are being deployed and lessons learned from other cities.

And even since we made this presentation, things have changed.

So today, President Trump did out Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and it does look like he plans to and replace her with Republican Senator Mark Wayne Mullen from Oklahoma.

Not much to add there, but we'll be monitoring sort of what that means for DHS and the rest of the country.

Go to the next slide.

So on a similar note, immigration is top of mind in Olympia.

So on behalf of the city's state relations team, I can share a few updates on policies still moving forward through the state legislative session process, which has just seven days left here.

So on this slide, you'll see several policies that are still in play until tomorrow's cutoff on the opposite house side.

So March 6th at 5 o'clock PM.

and just again to the busy nature of this week in Olympia, there've already been some updates since we made this presentation.

House Bill 2165 concerning false identification of peace officers has passed out of the Senate as of March 3rd.

Senate Bill 5855 concerning face coverings of law enforcement.

Agents at the local, state and federal level have also passed out of the House as of March 3rd, and then Senate Bill 5925, mainly relating to the duties and powers of the Attorney Generals, passed out of the House on March 4th.

So all those bills are on their way to the governor's desk.

And then outside of that, the proposed house and state operating budgets also account for some backfilling of HR1.

So there is some information there around long-term care for non-citizens that are losing Medicaid access along with some implementation of the work requirements around Medicaid and SNAP.

So a session does adjourn on March 12th.

So negotiations around budget and policy will continue until then.

And I know that my state colleagues will be in conversation with you all again on Monday and we'll be happy to answer any questions on that front.

But I will pass it off to the director.

Oh, you know what?

Actually, it's coming back here.

Oh, excuse me.

Back to deputy chief of staff.

Thank you, Annie.

So I would like to spend the next portion of the presentation sharing what the mayor and departments have been doing in preparation and response to federal immigration activity and the potential for increased activity in the city and in the region.

So starting with an overview of city operations, on January 29th, Mayor Wilson issued a mayoral directive to staff reaffirming that Seattle is a welcoming city and that the city does not enforce federal immigration laws The directive also provided guidance on city processes and procedures and asked departments to strengthen protections for city residents and visitors.

And I'll go into further detail on the implementation in just a moment.

In January, the mayor also issued an executive order banning federal immigration enforcement from staging its operations on city owned or city controlled property.

That executive order also directed the creation of the Stand Together initiative, which provided signage for private property owners.

In February, a compliance and readiness training video created by OIRA staff was made available to all city staff.

This video reiterates local policies as well as procedures outlined by the directive.

And finally, we have been working diligently to put preparedness protocols, communications, and human infrastructure in place, including standing meetings of both leadership, including the chair and vice chair of this body, as well as city staff on this topic.

So we are regularly convening.

To provide a bit more detail on the mayor's directive, we asked departments to do the following.

Designate a department representative for any federal immigration activity reporting needs to make a department-specific plan and some examples of some of the actions that have come through this are Seattle Center has created frontline employee badges that walk through the protocol of what to do should ICE come onto Seattle Center property.

And Office of Labor Standards, together with their Staff Safety Committee, has created a new employee protocol for public-facing gatherings.

So that's just a bit of a few examples of the work that's coming out of departments.

The directive asked all departments to conduct a data and privacy review in line with the city's privacy principles and in partnership with the city attorney's office and to mark all non-public areas of city property as well as to promote the availability of the compliance and readiness training in Cornerstone.

Departments were asked to complete this by March 1st.

We have been tracking, and most departments have completed these tasks and were eager to do so.

Many departments have already been planning since last year, and so some of these were updating those plans.

Here is an image of the signage that's going up on city property.

There have been more than 650 signs installed on city-owned and controlled lots, parks, plazas, storage facilities, and garages.

And this is the signage that was created through the Stand Together Seattle initiative for private property owners.

And the Stand Together initiative has spread to King County.

King County will be doing a similar signage with similar verbiage.

And then finally, beyond city operations, we have several work streams focused on engaging with, supporting, and partnering with communities.

In early February, the mayor hosted more than 30 immigrant rights and immigrant-serving organizations.

We were seeking feedback on the $4 million in funding that the community advocated for and that was appropriated by council last year.

You'll hear more about that in a moment.

As mentioned, we're working with private property owners with the signage.

We are also developing new outreach and new materials for small businesses.

We are hosting standing meetings with key stakeholders in the community to encourage information sharing and communication.

We know in part through our research with other cities that with increased immigration enforcement activity comes a huge increase in basic needs, and so we have been working with departments and community partners to plan for that.

And then another key learning from other cities is that a primary role for the city is to serve as a central hub for information.

And so we have put together a website, seattle.gov slash stand together, that pulls together city policy, resources, and information into one place.

We are continuing to add resources and information to that website.

And now I will pass it to Director Vu to talk a little bit more about funding for community.

Thank you, Kelsey.

I think it goes without saying that we're here today because we had incredible community advocacy and people advocating and making very clear the case for the city's support and thanks also to council for making that funding ongoing.

And as you have heard, we're doing a lot of listening and I think we're at that place where folks are ready to see some action.

So I want to first capture some of that community feedback and then share with you some of the broad categories that we're beginning to sort out that information into.

I will say this, everybody knows this, but the number one thing that came out from community discussions is that people are afraid.

They're deeply afraid.

They need legal services, particularly removal defense.

They need family safety planning.

They need food, housing, mental health support for youth.

But they also want to balance that with maintaining programs that help families with the sense of belonging and that improve their economic mobility.

So those are investments that OIRA and the city have long held around naturalization, around ESL and workforce education.

And because people are afraid, we also see an emerging articulation around the need for emergency services and basic needs.

So fees for if your car gets impounded, there will be resources available to help people pay for those fees.

And they also want us to see coordinate across the city, the county, and the state, and have us talking to each other across jurisdictions so that we can all leverage each of the things that we bring to the table into a better whole.

So the thing that we're beginning to sort this out and what that looks like at a very high level, and I look forward to bringing more of these details to Councilmember, your committee, and some of this you'll see builds on what already exists, but because of our dire situation that we have to do more.

So we need to do more around removal defense.

I think that's pretty clear for everybody and repeatedly that has been articulated as a need.

We have been doing rapid response work, but we also need to do more there.

So in addition to Know Your Rights education, also grants to community organizations to help them organize by neighborhoods, by areas of Seattle and help people feel supported.

We've been in discussion with schools, employers, and non-profits that provide services for immigrant and refugee communities.

They also need support, how to prepare, and we believe that the body of work ahead for us is coordinating with those organizations, but also building infrastructure to make sure that we're able to meet their needs.

And obviously for those who are already doing deportation defense, greater coordination.

I know you might be aware of this, but the city of Seattle is not the only entity that invests in deportation defense.

The county does, and the state does as well through three agencies.

Third thing is that we need to invest in areas and we heard this clearly from Council, is that organizations that have been receiving federal funds and have experienced cuts in federal funds, we need to go and support those organizations so that they can continue to do the great work that they've been doing.

particularly around naturalization services and ESL and adult basic education.

One area of work that has been actually a little bit under the radar screen because it's in the legal community is a legal orientation program for those who are detained in Tacoma.

And so we need to support that work as well.

I mentioned the emergency assistance and basic needs that continues to be an area articulated over and over and true to OERA's practice of wrapping everything around with language access and outreach through ethnic media, community, etc. that will be another area of investment for us and supported by additional staffing as needed, but also looking for efficiencies that exist in our current staffing so that we can do this work and maximize resources that go out to community.

So we're excited, we're ready to go, and I look forward to sharing more details later.

Thank you, Dr. Vu.

Thank you again for the opportunity.

We are continuing to plan.

We are pursuing all leads, pulling all threads on how we can support our communities during this uncertain time.

Welcome your partnership.

And I wanted to mention that you will hear next from the Seattle Police Department, but as part of the mayor's directive in January, she did issue some, you know, directive clarifying what is the police role in this, and you'll hear more details about that in the next presentation.

Thank you all so much for the presentation today and colleagues.

As we open up for questions, I want to start first with Councilmember Rivera or Chair Rivera, given the scope of your committee.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

First, I want to acknowledge and welcome Director Kubu back to the city.

Many might know, and if you don't, Director Vue was here as Director of OIRA.

during the pre-COVID and the beginning of the COVID time.

So welcome back.

So happy to be working with you again.

I've had the pleasure of working with you in those years and I'm happy that you are back.

And also you have so much experience as well.

you know the folks in community and that is really great.

And then also want to give a shout out to the former director, Hamdi Mohammed, who also was working with the OIRA team to do so much of this work again.

So the good news is that you have a lot of experience in this space and you continue to work with community and so many folks care so deeply about helping immigrant community residents in our city that we are really well placed with the OIRA team.

And thank you for returning to help at the helm again.

And then I really want to thank also the mayor's office.

Thank you, Deputy Chief of Staff for being here.

for the directives given to the city departments and even with the bill that I proposed and colleagues, I thank you for passing a couple of weeks ago.

I know that the mayor is in process and has reached out to departments and so that all our employees are aware of what information not to share and how.

So really appreciate the mayor's partnership in that way.

And I know that we are all very aligned in helping our immigrant residents again here in Seattle.

I will say, you know, related to the schools, I did wanna add a point here because I have been in conversations with Seattle Public Schools.

They have also policies in place for when ICE does show up to the schools and I can't speak for them obviously but I can share in part some of our conversation around they do have policies and there's the same warrants would have to be shown in order to and their legal department would be involved if there is any activity from the federal government that would show up at schools.

So just to put your minds at ease that that is happening since obviously Seattle Public Schools are completely separate from the city but there we partner with them that we are in conversations with them and that is happening as well because the last thing that we want is for immigrant residents not to send their kids to school that is really important for kids and so just know that is happening as well.

And then lastly, I will say, colleagues, I will and I had planned as per the last time OIRA came to give an update on the work that they were doing.

We'll bring them back to talk more and more depth about this $4 million investment.

And colleagues, I will make sure that you all know when that's happening so that even those of you that do not attend, if you would like to attend, that you're able to.

And we'll make sure to always have those slide decks available.

so we have the information about all the great work that is happening with the additional funds that we all included for OIRA's budget in response to this important work that we sadly have to do because of these, you know, abhorrent actions of the federal government.

And then I really wanna give a shout out to Annie Mayer for all the work that you're doing at the federal level.

It's not easy right now.

And so thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this.

Certainly.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I just want to echo again that point about, you know, we're all really excited about the 4 million through Seattle Shield initiative.

And I know we'll be doing a deeper dive in your committee in a couple of weeks on this topic.

And because there's so much interest on this, glad that we could weave in at least a brief update today to just assure the public that Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs is working really diligently to figure out a plan.

So thank you for your work, Director, on this.

And looking forward to that committee meeting as well.

and now I'm going to recognize council member Lynn.

Thank you, chair.

Just wondering if you could speak a little bit more about emergency assistance, basic needs planning.

I know that's hard work to do, especially as we face a budget deficit, but I'm just wondering if there's any more you could share there.

Yeah, I think part of this is what we've heard from other cities.

You know, we heard in Minneapolis one food bank, and obviously a pretty extreme situation there, but one food bank moving millions of pounds of food per day.

So we are exploring what can be done through the four million to support basic needs.

We are exploring potential public-private partnerships around basic needs, and then also just working with human services and other departments to think about distribution networks, just the sort of logistics and planning that might need to go into this.

And then kind of broadly defining basic needs, keeping our ears open.

Of course, there are things like food or rental assistance, but also considering things like towing fees and if someone is detained and their car is left behind, what happens to their car and how those costs impact their families or friends.

So yeah, I'm happy to follow up with more as the work progresses.

Thank you.

And can I ask again, what was the ICE budget that you mentioned?

This was in H.R.

1 and $170 billion was allocated specifically to immigration and the border.

The bill was much larger than that, but that was the number for immigration.

$170 billion.

Was that two years or do you know?

I'd have to clarify.

Okay.

Thank you.

I mean, it's just such an enormous number and just...

It's hard for us to go toe-to-toe with that level of resources as we think about the needs of our community.

And you mentioned a little bit about public-private partnerships.

Is there anybody leading in that space to try to support our communities on basic needs or immigration defense?

Because especially if the resources of the feds are aimed specifically at one community as we saw in the Twin Cities on a massive scale.

You know, that's impossible for any one community to sort of reasonably prepare for.

Just wondering if there's any sort of mutual aid across cities, information sharing, or again, philanthropy or other folks that are stepping up.

Yeah, well, I would say I want to give a big thank you to Councilmember Foster for being a thought partner and pursuing some public-private partnership through philanthropy.

And, you know, we are still exploring and so no details to share at this time, but we will follow up and let you know.

Thank you.

Thank you for those questions, Councilmember Lynn.

Councilmember Foster.

Yeah, thank you so much.

This is a great presentation.

We're so pleased to have all of you here and to have your leadership.

And I will also extend a welcome back to you, Director Vu.

We're so excited to have you.

And I was just gonna say, Councilman Rowland, I can follow up with you, but I commend leadership from the mayor's office in both trying to figure out distribution of the resources, but also how to ensure that you and we are exciting and trying to mobilize and partner with other entities because there is so much need.

And I'll also say that the thought going into it, particularly when it comes to the learning from other cities is really important.

I wonder if anybody at the table might speak to on the legal defense side, One of the things that I understand to be really important in the calculus is just knowing that once a case is taken on, that case needs to be followed through.

And I think that adds to some of the costs for our nonprofit partners who are delivering legal aid.

I wonder if somebody could speak to that from the table a little bit.

I can do that at a high level.

You are correct that removal defense was already very complicated and it's just gotten even more complicated.

And cases that would take months now could take years.

And so when we work with our legal services providers, we want to make sure that that infrastructure is in place and that we have attorneys that can maintain that representation throughout its course.

so we will continue that model and there's been obviously a huge request and need for legal defense and as you saw for the presentation we were committed to continuing that support.

Thank you, thank you so much and the reason I ask the question is I think we may not always track that these changes in federal law make the cases take longer which means the cases take to cost more money, which means that resources, unfortunately, aren't able to go as far as they maybe have gone in the past.

So I appreciate the attention to detail that OIRA is bringing to this.

And that instance was something I learned through some recent engagement.

I wanted to just uplift it for colleagues as we are trying to have the largest impact possible.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Foster.

I'm going to ask a couple of quick questions.

Oh, Councilmember Rivera, do you have a question?

Well, just to add to this discussion, it's just, you know, Councilmember Lynn, it's absolutely right.

We're not going to be able to backfill for all the things that we're losing.

And we also are partnering with the county and the state.

A lot of the organizations like NERP and kind and that provide legal defense, for instance, you may know also get county and state dollars.

So we're relying on our partners at the county and state level to also, everyone is pulling pooling resources together in order to respond to the needs of community.

And I know you all have partners on the county council as well who very much care about this, like council member Jorge Barun and Rod Dombowski and others, and of course the executive as well.

So though we are not going to be able to backfill for everything, I am so grateful that we have partners at the county and the state level that can come together so we can try to do the best we can with what we have to manage for this.

So I really just wanted to state that as well because I know that the governor, the executive, King County Council members and all of us are in alignment and the mayor, all alignment and agreement and doing everything we can toward response.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Rivera.

I'm going to ask a couple of quick questions.

Hopefully this will have quick answers, but I want to first express my appreciation again for the mayor's directive.

It's been exciting to see the signs go up and colleagues.

I don't know if you recall in the welcoming city resolution we did last year, we introduced that concept of getting signage up there.

And so it's really encouraging to see movement be made on that and signs go up.

I know we've definitely fielded some questions in community about that, but it's been exciting to see progress be made on that.

express a thank you to the mayor's office for really making moves on that point.

I wanted to ask just a quick question about the department representatives piece and some of the internal collaboration you were able to share.

Are department representatives a part of like an interdepartmental team?

Are these individuals receiving specific training on how to respond, who to contact and the procedures in place and how we coordinate together?

I'm just thinking about how we can draw on principles of emergency management operations.

Yeah, I really appreciate that question.

As of now, we've had departments designate a representative, and if anyone's listening, I want to thank those representatives for stepping up into this role.

And we do have plans to get folks together and do some training and make sure everyone is feeling prepared.

So I think that is the next piece of the work to come.

Great, and thank you to those department representatives.

I'm sure they're all tuned in right now.

And also noting for the record, again, the Stand Together website, which is now up, encourage folks to check that out.

I know my team has noticed a lot of small businesses posting information up in their windows.

And I wanted to ask, is there a number or department that we can refer people to if they, when ICE is violating Stand Together, like signs and guidance?

Yeah, at this time, I mean, if there is a safety or, you know, life-threatening emergency, we are directing people to call 911. I think and that is the guidance that we can give at this time.

Thank you.

And my last question is just related to employee training.

I know last year I think we got like over a thousand city employees trained and this is the compliance and readiness training that's available on Cornerstone.

Just for a point of clarification, is this a mandatory training at this time or is it in a voluntary basis?

At this time it is not a mandatory training.

However, we're hearing a lot of demand for the training and so we imagine employees who it's most relevant for are going to be taking it.

I would just add that other jurisdictions are excited and have asked us to share with them and so we've done that and we will continue to try to be good partners with other jurisdictions as needed.

That's wonderful to hear, thank you.

Colleagues, any final questions for our presenters for today?

All right, then I'm going to thank our...

We will be moving to our next item on the agenda.

Thank you.

Moving on to our next item on the agenda, will the clerk please read item three into the record?

Item three, Seattle Police Department immigration response briefing and discussion.

Thank you.

Colleagues, as our presenters are getting seated at the table, I wanna just ground us in this presentation and take us back to budget last year when we put forward this statement of legislative intent.

As a refresher, we unanimously approved a statement of legislative intent requesting the Seattle Police Department to provide a report on the implementation plan for an executive order, but we also asked for a number of other pieces of information.

And the slides included as a part of today's agenda, but wanted to read into the records some of the specifics that this body asked for more information on.

particularly outlining how the department will ensure that line level officers and patrol supervisors are trained for and know how to quickly access department policies on interactions with federal immigration and customs enforcement.

This includes a variety of scenarios and the ones that we specified in this slide include when an ICE officer is requesting immediate on-scene assistance with an arrest or detention that ICE characterizes as enforcement against criminal activity per federal code restricting illegal entry or prior deportation.

Additionally, policy or protocols on ICE officers requesting immediate on-scene assistance with immigration enforcement operations that result in the need for peacekeeping activities such as crowd control or traffic management.

Additionally, protocols on ICE officers who use excessive force during an arrest or detention such that an SPD officer becomes compelled to comply with RCW 1093-190, peace officer duty to intervene.

Additionally, individuals who appear to be or potentially are acting in a manner that creates the perception that they are ICE officers involved with immigration enforcement activities but are not identifiable as federal agents.

who may be concealing their identities using masks.

And lastly, ICE officers or officials who attempt to compel SPD assistance in securing physical evidence or sharing data captured during an ICE enforcement operation or at a city event that could include residents exercising their First Amendment rights.

I wanted to read that in the record today just as a quick refresher.

I know a lot has happened since we passed budget and a lot has happened nationally since putting this forward.

But these were the items that council was seeking clarification on and what we wanted to have a discussion today on.

And with that, I'm now going to turn to our presenters at the table.

Please introduce yourselves for the record.

Thank you.

There we go.

Thank you, Chair Rink.

Allison Holcomb, Executive Operations Manager for Public Safety and Mayor Wilson's administration.

We appreciate the opportunity to set some context as we prepare to hear from Chief Barnes in response to the slide that you've just read.

I just wanted to walk us through a little bit of the history that you just indicated that we've all experienced in the last several months, or actually only a couple of months.

January 15th, Chief Barnes issued a policy directive reinforcing requirements of Seattle police officers in responding to federal law enforcement agents' presence in the city.

This policy directive was issued just a week after we all witnessed Renee Goode murdered in Minneapolis.

This is why this information took the form of a directive.

A policy directive is issued by the chief when a matter feels time sensitive and urgent versus the adoption of a policy that is incorporated into the manual that's available to the public.

That is a longer process that requires more internal and external stakeholding and is underway.

but we just wanted to place into context why this was delivered as a directive and why it may not have received as much vetting as a policy that goes into the manual would receive.

After Chief Barnes issued his policy directive on the 15th, he also posted to the Seattle Police Department blotter on January 26th, a message which has been reposted and lifted up just today, March 5th.

So any member of the public can go to the Seattle Police Department blotter website.

and will read a statement and affirmation in more detail about the Seattle Police Department's commitment to defending the people of Seattle from federal civil immigration enforcement that overreaches, that crosses the line.

The opening sentences of the blotters state, the Seattle Police Department understands the concern and anxiety created by reports of federal enforcement actions being taken in the city we all hold dear.

The Department stands by our core beliefs and affirms that we will follow our policies and Washington state law.

The piece about following Washington state law is important to this conversation.

In the mayoral directive dated January 29th that my colleague Kelsey Mescher just referenced, Mayor Wilson reiterated the direction that the chief had already given the police department.

She reinforced that.

And then she went on to include references to relevant Washington state law, including the Keep Washington Working Act and the Courts Open to All Act.

However, We did not, in that directive, address the state law that I think probably weighs most heavily on all of us today.

That is RCW, Revised Code Washington, citation 1093190. That is the peace officer's duty to intervene.

That is a state law that applies to every peace officer in this state.

Under that law, peace officers are required to intervene when they are witnessing another peace officer using excessive force.

The law specifically requires that they shall intervene to end the use of excessive force, to prevent further use of excessive force, and to render aid to any person injured as a result of the use of force.

Now, the duty to intervene statute was adopted in 2021 in the wake of Washington state voters passing I-940, a statewide ballot measure that was advanced by a coalition led by family members who lost loved ones to police use of deadly force, and who also strongly believed that both they and Washington's sworn peace officers want everyone to make it home alive.

Those leaders of the I-940 initiative believed that the path to that goal, that everyone makes it home alive, required building bridges with the people whose colleagues had been the ones that killed their loved ones.

Seattle police officers all are sworn to uphold the state law making explicit their duty to intervene.

And all of us here hope that the duty to intervene will prevent a tragedy like those we witnessed in Minneapolis from happening here.

and we all need to be fair and reasonable in our expectations of Seattle's police department.

Seattle police officers cannot obstruct federal agents from enforcing federal law.

It is not clear how a Seattle police officer could anticipate and prevent the kinds of murders that we witnessed happen in Minneapolis.

That said, it is clear that Seattle police officers have sworn themselves to uphold Washington state law, Seattle police policies, and to intervene to defend Seattle's residents and visitors from excessive force and to render aid.

and the mayor's office is here to ask all of us to stand together and demonstrate unity toward the federal administration.

Thank you very much.

And with that, I will pass the microphone to Chief Barnes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon, council president, committee president, council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on this very important issue.

I want to begin by acknowledging the deep concerns that many in this chamber and across our city are feeling about federal immigration enforcement and its intersection with local policing.

Seattle is a welcoming city, and I understand that any perception of local law enforcement involvement with federal immigration raises concerns about public safety, about trust, and about civil rights.

As Chief of Police, my decision-making matrix remain grounded in the same core principles that guide every aspect of police work, peacekeeping, de-escalation, rendering medical aid, and the most thorough and transparent documentation of incidents possible.

These priorities do not shift based on political climate, the federal landscape, or the pressures of the moment.

They are the foundations of how we keep people safe.

We are, however, navigating uncharted territory.

the same federal laws and constitutional doctrines that once got at our department for over a decade under the authority of a federal consent decree and that also protected Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock Nine when federal law enforcement intervened to prevent states and local municipalities from obstructing civil rights are now being invoked.

to prevent states and local municipalities from interfering with federal immigration enforcement action.

This moment requires us to consider multiple pathways to include civil litigation.

It requires us to be ethical, thoughtful, and patient.

I believe that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to every scenario we may discuss today and that these concerns are that rigid and or reactive decision-making could lead to an unforced error.

My commitment is to ensuring that every action taken by the Seattle Police Department is grounded in law, guided by our values, and aligned with the realistic expectations of the people that we serve.

And when this path forward becomes unclear, I will ask myself and I will ask of my officers to answer one simple question.

Am I doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons?

This question and these answers and these principles have guided me as a police officer and guided me in this work in moments of uncertainty.

And I'm certain it will guide us as we navigate the complex legal and moral landscape of this challenge.

We will now move to our presentation.

With us is our COO, Sarah Smith, who will introduce herself and begin the presentation.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Hello.

My name is Sarah Smith.

I'm the Chief Operating Officer of the Seattle Police Department.

Good afternoon again.

We are here today to present our response to the Statement of Legislative Attent, SPD 11SA2, which requested that the Seattle Police Department report on the implementation plan for two separate EOs that were issued in 2025. These EOs were around the city's response to potential unilateral National Guard responses and an EO strengthening our response to federal threats to immigrant and refugee communities.

Today, the Chief, Allison, Alex, and I are here to present information relating to the background on the directive and some of our recent actions, the process for developing our directive, the specific details of the directive and what it looks like in practice, in reality, and then, finally, the process for training and communicating to our officers.

So let's go back in time.

Let's go back to October 2025, only just a few months, even though it feels much longer.

In October 2025, the city issued two executive orders to enhance the city of Seattle's response to federal threats to our communities.

The orders called for the creation of an interdepartmental task force, the Seattle Resilience Task Force, proactive planning and coordination amongst our city departments and legal partners, legislative actions, which you have all been taking to hold federal agents accountable, and guidance around our local police response.

This task force, the Seattle Resilience Task Force, began meeting on a weekly basis for planning and coordination purposes.

At these meetings, they discussed items such as legal options that can be taken, communication strategies for this very real issue, and our preparedness planning.

Also during this time, the Seattle Police Department hosted an internal federal response tabletop to work through our own readiness around a potential unilateral federal response.

Using this work, using the work of this task force, the department began drafting our directive and working through our review process.

As a note, this directive, which we'll be talking about in much more detail soon, was crafted to further clarify existing policies.

Once drafted, it was shared with the Resilience Task Force, the Mayor's Office, and our accountability partners for feedback.

Now, understanding the increasing anxiety and concern that was happening every single day with our communities, We wanted to move quickly to get this order out to make sure everyone understood where we stood and what our guidance was to officers under this trying time.

As I noted earlier, our directive expands upon and clarifies an existing policy that's in our current manual.

and that policy is 6.02 interaction with foreign nationals policy.

This is a specific policy that states that employees will not assist or participate in any immigration enforcement actions.

So I just think that's very critical to know.

And with that, I'm going to pass it on to Chief Barnes to talk through the details of the directive.

The directive was again implemented after we saw the murder of Renee Goode.

Many questions from community members, many questions from officers, a lot of concern around what is my directive, what is our directive, and how are they to respond.

And so I want to go through this.

Number one, if officers receive a 911 call, they will respond to the concerns.

For our community members, 911 calls do not go directly to the police department or police officers.

They go through our amazing 911 care team.

That team then dispatches the officers to the concern.

So it is possible that a call could come in from a member of a federal agency.

It could come in from a community or both.

when the officers receive a call to respond, they are sometimes unaware of the origin unless it's explicitly listed in the call for service.

The officers will respond.

When officers arrive, they will ensure, number one, that the scene is safe for everyone present, then provide medical aid to anyone that needs it.

Officers will attempt to contact the reporting party.

If we need to use a language line, we can do that as well to facilitate communication.

Oftentimes, the CARE 911 team, they're really good at letting us know if that's going to be needed before the officers will arrive, and we appreciate them for that.

Officers will utilize their in-car and their body-worn camera video per our directives to ensure that we capture as much of this incident as possible.

Officers will attempt to validate the status of individuals appearing to be law enforcement.

And we've been very successful at this by respectfully requesting official identification when safe and feasible to document the incident.

And the officers have been able to do this.

If someone were not to provide that information, then we would use other means We have lines of communication with some of our other federal partners that we can make calls and or if there are vehicle registration information we can do that as well.

I feel very confident that if someone is pretending to be a federal law enforcement agency our officers will be able to determine that rather quickly.

A patrol supervisor will respond.

This is important with officers to the scene.

We wanted some level of supervision there.

More officers with experience and supervisory authority often lead to a better outcome to continue to monitor the incident until it is complete.

and of course officers are required to document this in an investigative report and any videos or anything that they observe, any injuries are also documented to be used at a later time if that is the case.

This is our mission.

We all know what this is.

We've talked about this several times.

I normally lead with this, but I thought it was important.

Our job is to prevent crime, enforce the law, support quality public safety, delivering respectful and professional and dependable police services.

I wanted to definitely highlight that in our mission, that was written long before I came to Seattle, respectful and professional is in our mission.

And so when I put that in the directive, I did get a couple of questions about why are we being respectful.

It's in our mission and it's our expectation.

But more importantly, what are our mandates?

Number one, peacekeeping.

Two, de-escalation, rendering medical aid and documenting everything that happens.

And that's for everyone on scene, whether it's a community member, whether it's a federal agent, we will keep the peace, de-escalate and render medical aid if needed.

We were able to communicate this directive and train officers from the email that was sent from me to all members of the police department.

It was reiterated and trained in what we call our roll call briefings.

Each section has a briefing with the first line supervisor.

where they discuss any directives or new policies.

In addition, we have a system called Power DMS, where officers are required to acknowledge that they have received and reviewed any changes in policy, and we've used that before, as well as the policy of duty to intervene, which they are very well aware of.

Additionally, as spoken before, this directive is being turned into a policy, which means that we will be engaging our various stakeholders.

I think that's very important.

There were some that I talked to who thought that I went way too far with this and then some that I talked to that thought that I did not go far enough.

but I do believe that we are committed to listening to all voices as we craft this policy, including your voice as well.

It's one of our most important accountability partners.

Thank you.

And just lastly, before we take a few questions, the most important part is that this is a welcoming city and it should remain that.

It's one of the reasons why many people that I talk to on a regular basis come to Seattle.

And in order to do that, we have to keep the peace.

In order to do that, we have to be engaged in continuous learning and continuous improvement.

And we have to understand how our actions affect other people.

I think our department is certainly Learned a lot from other cities who have faced these challenges.

I spent a lot of time talking to other police chiefs in other cities, getting advice, and they have been very open with me about things that they saw on the ground.

before, during, and after things that, quite frankly, they wish had not happened.

And they do that because of relationships that I have with various members of the police profession, the reputation of the city.

People were willing to talk to members of the mayor's office, members of my office, because of the reputation of Seattle.

And I do believe that people are watching Seattle.

They're watching what we're going to do.

I always talk about my vision of being a national model for exceptional policing, but sometimes it's about being a national model for other people who are watching.

And so we're gonna take our time, we're gonna do what's right, and I thank you for your guidance and your passion in this particular endeavor.

I look forward to your questions.

Thank you all for being before committee today.

Colleagues, I'm gonna open it up for questions and comments.

Vice Chair Kettle.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank Ms. Holcomb from the Mayor's Office for being here, Chief Barnes, Chief Operating Officer Smith, and Chief of Staff Ricketts.

I really appreciate the presentation and the statements.

I think it's really important.

At the end here, I like the idea, the point about respectful and professional, because this in some ways goes to our resolution that we just passed, titled Professionalism and Standards, as it relates to law enforcement.

across the board, federal, state, county, local, whatever it is.

But obviously, in this context, federal law enforcement, which is so important.

Ms. Holcomb, I appreciate you being here.

One of the things that I'd note with this slide, it was directed to SPD, but one of the things as we're working through this and we've had our meetings including today is the fact it's a whole of government response.

An important piece to this is our city attorney.

I've had numerous conversations with city attorney Evans as it relates to federal law enforcement, but can you speak to like the Mayor's Office and the City Attorney in that play because this is part of the response too in addition to local law enforcement and other entities.

I will attempt to, and I will welcome you redirecting me if I'm not addressing the question that you're asking me, Council Member Kettle.

In our conversations within the mayor's office, we've thought about the response as having multiple components.

And a critical component that comes to mind for me when you talk about the city attorney is that realistically, if something like what happened in Minneapolis were to happen in Seattle, or if the President were to federalize the National Guard and insist that Seattle can't handle its own public safety needs, the first and strongest defense that we have is City Attorney Evans and her team filing lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington to stop the federal administration from unlawful, illegal, and abusive actions.

And the mayor is closely coordinating with city attorney Evans to support that work.

And that includes coordinating with all of the city departments, to, for example, provide declarations, sworn declarations and affidavits that would support the factual statements that would be attached to such a claim.

What are the impacts on our businesses?

What are the impacts on our neighborhoods?

What are the impacts on our residents, on our visitors?

What are the impacts on our police department of federal interference and interruption of the daily lives here in the city of Seattle?

If I haven't answered your question though, please help me.

No, that does answer it.

And one of the things I wanted to highlight is that there's many different types of responses from city government.

I know there's a focus and there's an intense focus on SPD.

And that's one reason why I appreciate having these two pieces involved, the mayor's office, this discussion about city attorney, but then obviously with Seattle Police Department.

Chief, I've been saying in committee and other places, you know, the importance, I always say, engage, confirm and document.

And I appreciate the directive and what you're doing and I think it's super important.

It kind of ties in back because the documentation is so important.

because as you know and what we're doing in committee, functional criminal justice system and anything that we do to assist that piece is so important.

Can you speak to that point in terms of engaged, confirmed document a little bit further?

Yes, I'll tell you why I believe documentation is so important.

We may have a federal government, and I know this to be true, that may not be willing to hold people accountable, but that may not always be the case.

There are some cases where statute of limitations hold, some cases where they do not.

But having that appropriate documentation using our body-worn cameras, our in-car cameras or whatever it may be for any person is vitally important to ensure that justice is done at some point.

And so our officers are really great.

I believe at report writing, we have had body-worn cameras dash cameras for a very, very long time and they know how to use them and how to store that information.

Hopefully it will never come to that.

We will never have to use that for anything, but we will be prepared should something happen and we need to document or present information so that someone can get justice.

Thank you, I appreciate that response.

My next question kind of goes a little bit to what we somewhat heard, we heard different pieces from public comment, and it relates to work that we've done in council related to crowd management.

Obviously there's lessons learned, you know, in terms of protest, counter-protest, and I bring this up and related to like the LGBTQ, the protesters related to the Cal Anderson, protest, counter-protest, and as a side note for the public, I recently met with the LGBTQ commission, and this is gonna be a focus of a public safety committee meeting using our three accountability partners to focus on this one issue, and that's gonna be The date, we have a rough date right now, but we're gonna release that.

I bring that up because there's that in itself.

Let's just put that to the side.

And then there was a following protest that was done here at City Hall.

And I'm concerned that with the policies and the like that are in place in crowd management, that you're keeping, you know, everybody, as you said this before, in terms of, you know, being able to exercise their rights, but sometimes in order to do that, there could be some visuals that make it look like you're protecting one side over the other.

And I could see this coming in this context too, potentially.

And I was just asking, I wanted to ask regarding like those lessons learned, crowd management lessons learned, you know, like from that protest, let's put Cal Anderson to the side, but like from here at City Hall, what can we do to show that you're looking to, you know, support the rights of Seattleites and it's not being something that may visually look one way or the other?

Yeah, I believe it begins with communication.

It can only get better.

Communicating with our public what we're doing.

I can think about the No Kings protests where we were actively tweeting.

We're actively going on social media, letting everyone know what our posture was.

and why we were responding.

I think that's very important.

We've learned a lot from each protest that we do.

We recently completed, the Office of Inspector General recently completed a Sentinel event review of one of the protests.

And so there's about seven recommendations in that that we will be implementing.

We have a captain that will be implementing those things.

But perception sometimes is people's reality.

And, you know, one photo of your back turned to the wrong person could give the impression that we are supporting one side or the other.

in regards to your question when it comes to protests, we are neutral in the protests and we don't take sides.

When it comes to this issue, it's clear, I want to make it clear, that we are not or do not support federal immigration enforcement at any time.

We're there to keep the peace.

If we have to talk to people, that doesn't mean that we're on their side or that we're suggesting or assisting with people.

And we'll try to explain that should that one second clip or photo be given to the community.

But I think it's important that we do talk to our community and let them know that, yes, if we do show up, we're there to keep the peace.

We know our community, our officers know our community, and we're there to communicate with them to ensure that everyone is safe and that everyone goes home safe.

That's very, very important to me.

And so if that means that we have to talk to ICE or move them aside or call a supervisor, then we're going to do that.

But we want to make sure that everyone knows exactly why we're doing what we're doing, and in my opinion, we will probably be over-communicating so that nothing comes out that we couldn't help where people do not understand our stance in this particular issue.

Thank you, Chief.

I appreciate those answers and, Chair, I just wanted to close and I just wanted to piggyback a little bit on Council Member's Lynn point about like the budget piece with DHS.

and I said this in committee, you know, right now we're a country at war and 15 years ago I was deployed in the same area, North Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, but 25 years ago when I was 6th Fleet in terms of 9-11, and the wars that came after that with Afghanistan and Iraq, there was a massive budget increase, the creation of DHS, massive increase with the intelligence community and other elements.

And this is one of the things I noted during that timeframe in terms of the power behind those budgets and then also what happened, as a side note, in terms of excess military equipment going to law enforcement across the board and how that was problematic.

and I just wanted to say this publicly because with that backdrop in mind, I am concerned about the amount of dollars that are being thrown at DHS and specifically with federal law enforcement.

Let's put FBI to the side, but particularly that law enforcement elements that are within DHS.

because they didn't have the greatest reputation in the first place.

I've learned from experience from like a quarter century ago when you throw a lot of money at things, bad things can happen and likely will in terms of standards and just across the board.

And it's a big concern in terms of what is happening with these budget increases.

And lastly, I'll add, particularly because the slide mentions it, the National Guard.

For those who think that because of the court ruling related to that, that issue stand by because that may take away the National Guard, but then that may necessitate then the President placing active duty service members on our streets.

and I think that's another piece that people need to understand and I come to this work with that experience and those thoughts and those pieces in mind and it goes into the work that we do with the mayor, it goes to the city attorney and to my desire to work with both entities because it's very important and important for the council to work with our new executive, to work with our new judiciary side of things as well with the city attorney to look out for what's best for Seattle.

and then separately is also, of course, work with the public safety elements that exist primarily right now with the Seattle Police Department.

So I just wanted to make those notes and it goes to what we're doing, it goes to these seven bills, it's gonna go to future actions that we take and I just wanna thank everyone for being here and I look forward to working with all elements moving forward.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Vice Chair Kettle.

Next, recognizing Councilmember Lin.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you to our full team of presenters here.

I know that this is unprecedented and incredibly difficult situation that we all find ourselves in.

So thank you for all the work you're doing.

On the duty to intervene, I appreciate specifically on the duty to render aid.

I mean, I think we, know that when there's a serious incident timely aid can be the difference between life and death.

And so I'm just hopeful that if we see a tragedy like we saw in the Twin Cities that somehow we are able to quickly render aid if that aid is not already being provided.

Question on, and I know that things are moving quickly here, but in terms of updating like SPD policy, manuals, directives, just wondering how quickly, it sounded like there was an email to all staff or all officers, just wondering how quickly manual or directives might be updated to reflect.

current instructions.

I'm going to speak to the rendering medical aid.

Yeah, thank you.

So our officers, we have many officers who are also medics.

That's something that is new in policing for a lot of folks, certainly for me.

But I do think that we have a department that's probably better than most that I have been a part of or studied in regards to rendering medical aid.

They are trained above the basic training that most police officers get when it comes to rendering medical aid.

It's also important to note that, again, we do not assist or advise in those enforcement actions, and we may not even be there when the original cause of the injury occurs.

But if we are called, we will be there and we will render aid.

And I feel very confident in the skill levels that our officers have when it comes to being first level medics.

And then I will talk a little bit around the policy deliberations that are currently happening.

First, I just want to note that the directive as a chief's order is something that if something drastically changes tomorrow or the following week, we can move very swiftly on.

It is an order.

It is meant to be clear and meant to be getting out quickly.

And so this is something very similar to what happened in 2020. We also use directives at that time.

Now towards the actual policy process, we right now are in the stakeholder review.

So Deputy Chief Sales, who's over policy, myself and Alex will be meeting with CPC, I believe in the next two weeks, to discuss their feedback on the directive.

So we are working through our stakeholders right this moment, and we're hopeful to have it done in the next two to three months.

But again, if anything changes, if anything drastically changes, we'll have to pivot as well.

But in the meantime, that order is effective.

Exactly.

Thank you.

And thank you for the dialogue and the direction to document.

As mentioned, I think we see the critical importance of documenting for for purposes of both historical record, for purposes of countering lies that unfortunately we see the federal administration issue immediately to cover themselves, but also for future prosecution.

As you mentioned, there are some crimes that can't be, that are state crimes that can't be pardoned by the feds and that do have longer statute of limitations that if that were to occur, I certainly hope it doesn't, but if it were to occur, I certainly hope that we, I believe it's critical that we have the evidence to allow our prosecutors to to proceed at some point.

So I appreciate the importance and the direction to make sure that officers are doing what they can to help document.

And this is an interesting area because I feel like we've seen on the one hand, I have deep concerns about the role of surveillance and cameras.

And we have also seen the critical importance of things like body cams or cell phone footage.

We saw the importance of cell phone footage back in 2020, and we've seen the importance of cell phone footage recently.

So this is a little bit of a curve ball, but just in terms of if there were to be a tragedy in an area where we happen to have cameras, Is there any reason that those cameras would not be allowed to, that we wouldn't be able to capture footage from those to document if there were a crime, like we saw a murder, like we saw of Alex Preddy, that those cameras couldn't be used to document that?

I'm just stuck on the curve ball.

It's the first curve ball we've had.

No, I'm just kidding.

No, there is no reason why.

If they're in the purview of those cameras, we will be able to capture that.

As a reminder, the footage is only held for five days.

I truly believe that in the event of some type of tragedy, we would be notified within five days.

And so that camera could be used and stored as evidence for future prosecution, as you mentioned earlier.

Thank you and I've expressed my concerns about the cameras and obviously that's an ongoing policy debate, but I just wanted to kind of know for my own information whether that footage we think that could be captured if it happened in one of those areas.

Finally, Just want to hear any thoughts you have.

So a couple months ago we heard about, you know, social media influencers going around in Southeast Seattle, knocking on doors of Somali daycare providers.

Anything you can do to talk about just sort of how SBD responds to those types of situations to assure our community.

In particular, there were concerns that one of those people might have been carrying a firearm or sometimes people are making threats or perhaps impersonating either state officers or otherwise, but anything you can share to assure our community.

Good afternoon.

First of all, I'd like to let you know, and I'll let the chief respond to the engagement portion, but we are currently working on setting a meeting with the Somali community as we speak to try to sit down and discuss with the daycare providers what we will do, what our policy is, and how we respond.

So I just want to let you know that we are in the process of working with them and meeting with them as soon as possible, as soon as we can get a date.

from them that's convenient for them.

We will meet with them.

We missed the first one, but we will definitely make the next one, so I just want to let you know.

Additionally to that, you know, my message has been clear.

Number one, there's nothing about that that I find amusing, funny, or entertainment value.

Nothing.

And I'm encouraging, we did encourage people to call 911 to tell them that they are trespassing on their property.

and if they are willing, we will make arrests for trespassing if that occurs.

And if that person is carrying a weapon and they're not lawfully allowed to have that weapon, they'll be charged appropriately.

I understand that we live in this world where social media influences and all of these other things have some entertainment value.

but there is never an entertainment value to harassing, threatening, or intimidating vulnerable communities under my watch.

Thank you for that.

And I do believe I've heard City Attorney Evans talk about hiring a prosecutor specifically focused on hate crimes and bias.

And so I'm not sure if that position has been filled, but certainly hope that if there are hate crimes occurring in our community, that you'll be able to work closely with City Attorney Evans on those.

Thank you, no further questions.

Thank you for those questions, Council Member Lin.

Council Member Foster.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Chief.

I really appreciate the presentation, attention to detail and your thoughtfulness with the committee today and as always with your work.

I wanted to just ask one follow-up question about the process turning the Well, I want to acknowledge that the directive as is, my understanding, functions as a policy, a policy level, and then now you're going through a process to engage with stakeholders to finalize that and move it into department written policy out of the directive space.

I heard you say that there was going to be engagement with CPC and other partners.

Are there other key communities or stakeholders that you know are going to be part of that engagement process as you go from directive to policy?

Yeah, absolutely.

So generally, we go through different phases.

And so we have done it internally.

City partners will be able to review.

Goes to our accountability partners.

And then we actually will be bringing in our labor partners as well.

So we have lots of different phases that we have to go through.

And we have to be very thoughtful.

And sometimes it may mean that if we hear some feedback that maybe conflicts with something else that we've received, we'll have to go back and discuss it further.

So we kind of phase it out in that approach.

approach.

But of course, we're open to feedback.

We're open.

And those accountability partners also include the Office of Inspector General, the Office of Police Accountability, and of course, our accountability partners as well.

Got it.

And I assume that's part of what's driving the two to three month timeline that you talked about.

Exactly.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that, Council Member Foster.

That's what I wanted to get clarified myself, so appreciate that.

Colleagues, additional questions before I go into some of mine?

Right.

Well, thank you for that.

I wanted to follow up on this piece related to understanding that the Seattle Police Department maintains functional independence, but I wanted to ask a clarifying question here.

Does or will SPD personnel personally assist or participate in any joint operations, task forces or other activities that could support immigration enforcement action?

Thank you for that question.

The answer is no.

We are on several federal task forces, but none of those task forces have a nexus to immigration.

Those officers who are on those task forces are directed to return to the police department should some director somewhere redirect that group to another function that is immigration.

They come back, they document that in a report, and then they maintain with us in our building until that operation is over.

So no, we're not on any task forces that are related to immigration control.

Certainly.

I know we've received a lot of questions about the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Is that something we're still participating in?

Yes, we are.

We are still participating, but we have no officers currently on the task force.

And so the last officers have been pulled out and they no longer on that task force.

And that is part of the, because of our staffing capacity.

Understood.

Thank you for clarifying that point.

And I wanted to follow up also on just this point related to just body cam footage.

When it comes to body cam footage referenced from actually Mayor Durkin's 2020 executive order, can you talk a little bit about where this footage goes, any intersection also or how it's open to public disclosure, laws, and in order to gather evidence of potential wrongdoing by agents who may be impersonating federal officers.

Is there anything you can share on that at this time?

Well, body-worn camera footage that is associated with the case report is held in evidence.com for the purposes of prosecution or if we're presenting the case to a district attorney or to the city's attorney's office.

That's where that information is housed and it belongs with us.

And then towards the PDR side of it, I think you've all heard about some of our PDR processes within the news and maybe even just talking through it with us.

I would say that any PDR requests, we go through a very stringent process around redaction.

That means pulling video, having our video editing folks redact, having someone else review it before it actually goes out.

And so the actual PDR process is very thorough.

And we can send over more information if you would like to know more about it.

Thank you and I think we're, you know, There's a question that we've certainly heard in community, and I think it's worth asking this point, that what happens if an officer, on their own volition, not by direction of the Seattle Police Department, but an officer on their own volition acts out of accordance with our policies and supports immigration enforcement activity, discloses information, or what have you?

What does the accountability look like for that officer?

So that would be a violation of our policy, potentially a violation of the law.

so that person would be investigated by OPA.

Potentially that person could be placed on administrative leave per the collective bargaining agreement and then depending on whether it was sustained, which means that the Office of Police Accountability found that that person did violate the law and a policy, then that person would have an opportunity to state their case in the Loudermil hearing with me, and then I would have to adjudicate that based on the recommended discipline from the Office of Police Accountability, which is independent of the police department.

Thank you.

Colleagues, any additional questions for today?

I know we're about over time.

If not, I certainly will have some follow-ups for the department as it relates to the statement of legislative intent, but thank you for being before committee today.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you, colleagues.

That takes us to the end of our agenda for today.

Is there anything for the good of the order?

Thank you.

Thank you from Councilman Barrores.

Hearing no further business to come before the committee, we are adjourned.

It is 4.05 p.m.

Thank you.