Speaker 1: All the appointments are confirmed and the no votes on certain ones are registered. Thank you very much. Adoption of other resolutions. Please read the resolution.
Speaker 2: Adoption of other resolutions. Resolution three 2022 affirming the human right to family unity and expressing opposition to the Trump administration practices separating and or detaining migrant families seeking asylum asylum at the US Mexico border and strong concerns about the Trump administration's.
Speaker 3: Lack of family.
Speaker 2: Reunification plans for over 2300 children and their parents or guardians and ongoing detention camps at the US-Mexico border in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the applicable international human rights framework.
Speaker 3: Catherine Gonzalez Thank you, Council President. It's my pleasure to bring resolution 318 2 to 2 full council today. As I mentioned in my communications with the with all of you in your offices last week, this is a resolution intended to take a position on the policy that is currently at play under the Trump administration, whereby ICE agents are literally taking children out of their parents arms and putting them in sometimes in cages, in detention camps, and oftentimes up to thousands of miles away from their parents. With no clear plan on how the federal government intends to reunify these children to their parents. There have been media reports and stories, and I'm sure all of us have been following about how in some instances it's the children that have been taken from their parents, have no clear identification or tie back to where they were taken from or whom they were taken from. And it is becoming increasingly unclear as to how that reunification is going to occur. And although we saw last week that that the Trump administration issued an executive order supposedly changing course in policy in this area, that executive order actually does does nothing to change the situation, that there is a zero tolerance policy that will now, instead of separating families, will result in jailing families in detention centers together for up to 20, 20 days based on a California Court of Appeals opinion that restricts the detention of children for no more than 20 days. That is a ruling that the Department of Justice under Trump is challenging with the hope, I'm assuming, of them being able to jail children for longer than 20 days in these particular situation. So the the resolution is quite simple. I want to thank Van Nguyen in my office for taking the charge on drafting it very quickly in consultation with some of the folks who make up part of the coalition and are actively planning for the June 30th Day of Action event. And I just want to spend a few minutes walking through some of the commitments that we are, in some instances reaffirming and new ones that we are taking on through this resolution, which has the concurrence of the mayor who went down to Tornillo, Texas, last week, along with other U.S. mayors and councilmembers from across the country, to stand stand in solidarity with those those families and those kids. So this resolution states our support for the Washington for Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson's lawsuit that he just announced on June 21st against the Trump administration zero tolerance policy for separation of immigrant children from their parents during US-Mexico border crossings. It also reaffirms our commitment through our city attorney's office to continue using legal avenues at our disposal, to resist efforts to impose upon the city any immigration, spending or funding policy that violates the U.S. Constitution or the laws of the United States. The City of Seattle commits to continuing to protect the rights guaranteed to the city and its people by the U.S. Constitution. And we also reaffirm our commitment and support to the immigrant community and to immigrant families and individuals through appropriate strategies in conjunction with community based organizations and local immigrant serving, community based organizations. In particular, it affirms the mayor's recent directive to city departments entitled City of Seattle Protocol and Federal Immigration Enforcement, which directs all city department directors and staff to refer any request for information from the U.S. to. Of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the mayor's legal counsel for addressing those particular issues. This is something that I had worked on with Mayor Durkan early on in the year after the Department of Licensing disclosure issue happened at the Washington state level. And she issued a mayoral directive. And we now recognize in this resolution that that is an ongoing expectation in this context. The resolution also recognizes that building resiliency and supporting empowerment of immigrant and refugee communities is just an essential immigrant defense strategy to increase family unity across the country and here in our city. And the resolution requests that our Office of Immigrant Refugee Affairs continue to work on identifying additional opportunities and resources to support organizing and resiliency building that will be led by the local immigrant community and that will seek beyond that, we will continue to seek the ongoing collaboration partnership of King County to build a regional resilience strategy. The resolution also supports the June 30th National Day of Action. There will be actions here in the city of Seattle as well, and this is an opportunity for us to, on the front end, support those efforts. And I again have been in communication with folks on the coalition and have offered my office's support and an opportunity to engage with other council members and their offices in the event that you all are interested in. Also helping out with that, with that day of action here in the city of Seattle, the resolution also requests that the residents of the city of Seattle pay close attention to the un-American and harmful policies coming out of this administration as it relates to the constant, constant dissemination of misinformation about immigrants and refugees that are being pushed out through mainstream media and otherwise by the White House, characterizing these as silly and refugee seekers, as criminals who are dangerous to us as as residents here in this country. And we will be working really hard in our office to continue to push out accurate information and accurate stories about what is actually happening down at the US-Mexico border. The resolution also encourages Seattle residents to, if they are able financially support legal aid, resiliency and rapid response focused organizations in Seattle. There are many organizations here who are just working around the clock right now to help families that have been separated and who find themselves detained in our region at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac in particular. And just want to call out the work of One America Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the ACLU Foundation, Kids in Need of Defense, Collective Legal Pueblo and Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network. As some reputable organizations who are doing amazing resiliency and organizing work in this space and providing much needed legal aid to these families that have been separated. And then lastly, this resolution takes a position on behalf of the City of Seattle whereby we support the recent bills introduced in Congress. It's Senate Bill 3036 and House Bill 6135, otherwise known as the Keep Families Together Act. And we encourage folks in our city to reach out to their congressional representatives in support of those two bills. And the City of Seattle will be working with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to send a joint letter to Washington's congressional delegation, also expressing our support of those of that particular particular act. And this morning in briefing, we heard from Leslie Posner over at home tonight are our lobbyists at the federal level about Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell's effort to get a hearing on these issues in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And this resolution, sun's our support expresses our support for that hearing to occur.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Gonzales. Any other comments from any of her colleagues? Cats from Swan.
Speaker 5: I'm supporting this resolution because it is essential for local governments to take a stand against the horrendous and inhumane treatment of immigrant and refugee families at the border. We need to add our voice to those of the immigrant rights and social justice organizations and activists fighting to build a movement to end an immigration policy clearly designed for cruelty. In particular, I wanted to congratulate the courageous activists in Portland who shut down the local ice facility with an Occupy style direct action and spread the demand to abolish ICE. ICE is an extremely undemocratic and inhumane security force, which for decades has operated with a mandate to pull families apart, drag people out of their beds in the dead of night, pull workers from their jobs and imprison them in inhumane facilities like the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Many progressive Democratic politicians are energetically opposing Trump's latest attack on immigrants. But we know this will not be enough. Trump's horrific policies can only be stopped by building fighting mass movements, something the Democratic Party has consistently failed to lead on. But that is not an accident. Just as an example, last Friday, the Seattle Times published an article titled Senator Patty Murray got campaign money from a company running Tacoma center where undocumented immigrants are held. This article talks about how she has received in as far as Washington state is concerned. Patty Murray is the biggest beneficiary of private prison campaign cash, and her 2016 reelection campaign received $7,500 from private prison operators, including 5000 from the Florida based Political Action Committee for the GEO Group, the nation's largest private prison firm, which also operates the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, which holds undocumented immigrants facing deportations by ICE. And it holds it owns 140 other such facilities nationally. The center, as you know, has been the center of a protest, hunger strikes and lawsuits, all led by activists and detainees themselves. So I think this is an example that shows that there is no substitute for working people of all identities, for for us to be organizing united movements independent of both the corporate parties, to successfully fight and defeat Trump's agenda and to demand an end to the seizure, detention, deportation and criminalization of immigrant working people and their families , and for taxing the rich and big business to fight for jobs, afford affordable housing and health care for all. But this example of Patty Murray also shows that we cannot rely on politicians. And unless we build our own movement, build our own political representation that do not take money either from big business or from specifically from these types of big businesses. I support this resolution, but most importantly, in order to build a movement, I hope to see Seattle's working people, immigrant and otherwise, at the demonstration for immigrant rights on June 30th, this Saturday, 10 a.m. at the Federal Building.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, Councilman Sean. Any further comments from Skeeter?
Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Many of us have talked about how under this day and age, we will be judged throughout history on how we stand up for our most vulnerable and the actions that we take and the laws that we passed to push back illegal and immoral acts. The resolution that Councilmember Gonzalez has put before us is exactly the type of action that we need to make sure that we don't pass the buck, point the finger, or wait for somebody else to right the wrongs that are being committed by this administration as the world looks at us. They will look for those who are showing what it looks like to resist from the local to the national level. And I think Washington state, with the community that we have, with the faith and immigrant rights leaders that we have, with the elected leaders who are standing up and fighting back and showing how we will change laws , object to any immoral and illegal act like the attorney general has done. And to stand in solidarity like this resolution has done by Councilmember Gonzalez are part of the path that will help shape our attempt to right the wrongs created by this administration. My husband has been at the border for the last week covering the illegal acts of ripping families apart. As many immigrant attorneys and community members who've been in our Sea-Tac detention and those who've been to the border to witness this corrupt interpretation of the law. We have a responsibility to show what it looks like, to make sure that we're responding to the cries of immigrant children who are being ripped away from their families, and to not just say that a executive order has been passed. So everything must be okay now. As Councilmember Gonzales said, things are not okay. This cannot be the norm. We cannot be numb to the cries of children who are at the border who are at risk of never seeing their parents again. So as we stand up as a community, whether it's standing in solidarity with the immigrants in our own community, like we talked about with my own meal feel they'll Pando tomorrow who has their own immigration case or we hear from the community members that are reaching out to each one of our officers or we think about our own experience. As I know, Councilmember Gonzalez has often mentioned her own roots as an immigrant as well. I think that what we hear on this council are saying is that we want to stand in solidarity with every immigrant, every refugee, every attorney who's spent their time making sure that they can reunite families with the community that's calling for action from the local to the national level. This is just one step among many that I know we will take as this council to stand up and right the wrongs of this administration. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Katherine Skeeter. Any further comments from my colleagues?
Speaker 3: I'll just I'll just close this out. On this resolution, I want to thank everybody for their support. And I'm very confident that we'll pass this unanimously today. And I want to thank Councilor Mosquito for her insightful remarks. You know, this has been a really it's always been hard to be the other in this in this country. And, you know, this is the first time in my life that I've had to live through administration like this one that is hellbent on making sure that he dehumanizes immigrants from all nations, but particularly focused on on immigrants lately from south of the border, from here. And for me, it's very personal, given my own family story. But I really appreciate the city being able to come together to take a position that really continues to support a lot of the organizing and momentum building that I have personally been a part of and and will continue to be a part of regardless of what my title is in the world. And so I just want to really thank all of the advocates who helped me think through the concepts in this resolution. And more importantly, I want to just thank them for continuing to do the work that they're doing. And part of the reason Chambers is and not Fuller today is because I'm being respectful of their requests to allow them to organize for what really matters. And that's not to show up at full council today. It's to continue to deliver the services and to continue to build the immigrant rights movement outside of City Hall. And that's exactly what they're doing right now. So I want to just thank them for all the work that they're doing and for all the tears that they are shedding. You know, I'm shedding those tears along with them. I think we all are. This is a a moral crisis of historical proportions that is staring us down right now in this country. And we have to band together. Get past rhetoric, get past the politics, and recognize that when when people's human rights are being fundamentally destroyed by by our federal government and by others, we have to be willing to stand together to fight back. And that's that's that's what I hope we can do moving forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Gonzales. Okay. I moved to adopt resolution 31822 or a second. Second has been moved in second and the resolution to be adopted. Those in favor of adopting the resolution, please vote i.
Speaker 3: I.
Speaker 1: Those opposed vote no. The motion carries and the resolution is adopted. The chair will sign it. Other business. I will move to rescind the July 2nd City Council excused absences for council members Bagshaw, Herbold, Mesquita and O'Brien because the meeting has been council as their second. All those in favor of that recession. Please vote i. I opposed. The ayes have it. And is there any further business to come for the council?
Speaker 0: Oh.
Speaker 1: 5 minutes. We are going to reconvene as a parks commissioner here in 5 minutes or district commission 5 minutes. And with that, we stand adjourned. And everyone, have a great afternoon or at least a five minute break.
A RESOLUTION affirming the human right to family unity and expressing opposition to the Trump Administration’s practices separating and/or detaining migrant families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, and strong concern about the Trump Administration’s lack of family reunification plans for over 2,300 children and their parents or guardians and ongoing detention camps at the U.S.-Mexico border in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the applicable international human rights framework.