Gov. Bob Ferguson issued an executive order Monday that will create a new immigrant sub-cabinet" and direct state agencies to review their data collection, sharing and retention policies.
The order comes as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up immigration enforcement and takes drastic measures to quell resistance. The president announced over the weekend he is sending National Guard troops to Portland to stamp out protests outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. State Attorney General Nick Brown and Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said Monday they are preparing to sue if the president sends troop here.
The governor's announcement of the executive order does not refer to that possibility but more generally refers to Trump's immigration crackdown. "While the federal government engages in cruel attacks on immigrant communities, we are taking action to protect the rights and interests of all Washingtonians," Ferguson said in a news release.
The sub-cabinet will be made up of representatives from each of the agencies in the governor's cabinet and will be charged with coordinating immigration-related issues including data privacy, health care and implementation of the Keep Washington Working Act.
The 2019 law prohibits most forms of local cooperation with ICE. Some officials have said they don't want to abide by the law, including Pierce County Sheriff Keith Swank.
Immigrant advocates have been pushing the governor to enact stronger safeguards for immigrants, particularly after ICE's use of state Department of Licensing data came to light in July. The department last month cut off ICE's access to a data search system that provides DOL information, which the federal agency used in at least one case to make an arrest.
A coalition of advocacy groups, including OneAmerica, wrote a letter asking Ferguson to conduct an audit of data practices among state agencies. They held a rally earlier this month to reiterate that demand.
Trump has already castigated so-called "sanctuary" states like Washington and threatened to cut off millions of dollars in federal funding. It's possible the state risks further ire by reinforcing policies opposed to the president's.
At the rally, OneAmerica Executive Director Roxana Norouzi said she wasn't worried about that. "I think they've already been provoked," she said of federal officials.
Norouzi said Monday she was happy to see Ferguson take action as the National Guard mobilization indicates "the stakes are getting higher and higher." She added she and others were still combing through the executive order to figure out "where does it actually have teeth and impact.
Ferguson could not be reached by press time for those details. He is on vacation out of state this week and will then attend a conference and meetings on the East Coast, a spokesperson said.
His release broadly said the group will build upon the work of a team Ferguson created in January to help children whose parents face detention and deportation.
The Family Separation Rapid Response Team has kept a low profile. Nancy Gutierrez, spokesperson for the Department of Children, Youth and Families, the team's lead agency, said its biggest tangible action so far has been creating a list of resources, such as groups that can help create a safety plan for children whose parents have been taken away.
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