Update, 10/8/19: The D.C. Council unanimously passed Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen’s emergency legislation. It would take effect immediately following the mayor’s signature and last for up to 90 days. Unlike permanent legislation, it does not require congressional review.

Original:

Ward 6 D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen plans to introduce emergency legislation on Tuesday that would further limit the city’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities. If passed, the bill would alter the D.C. Department of Corrections’ relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, curtailing even the limited cooperation that currently exists between the two agencies.

The legislation would create new rules around what is perhaps the most important tool federal authorities use to try and receive assistance from local jurisdictions: ICE “detainer requests.” The agency asks local jails to keep immigrants in custody for up to 48 hours after they would have otherwise been released, allowing agents time to travel to the jail and pick them up. Detainer requests also ask local law enforcement to give ICE agents 48 hours notice before they release an immigrant from custody.

Currently, the D.C. DOC does not hold immigrants in custody for ICE, but it does honor the second part of the detainer request, namely notifying federal agents before an inmate is released. The department also allows federal immigration agencies into the D.C. Jail and other correctional facilities to take custody of a wanted person.

“I’ve been talking with a lot of immigrant neighbors and hearing from them about the fear, the concern, the lack of trust that many have. We say we’re a sanctuary city, but we’re allowing out undocumented neighbors to be picked up in this way,” Allen says. “This is something to safeguard our neighbors. Frankly we have no interest in being complicit with the Trump administration and the way they’re treating immigrant neighbors.”

The councilmember plans to introduce an emergency bill on October 8, which would be active for 90 days, and temporary legislation, which would be active for 225 days. He would introduce permanent legislation in the coming weeks or months.

The emergency bill has three main provisions: It prohibits the D.C. DOC from holding immigrants in custody for ICE (a rule the department already adheres to, as a matter of policy); it prevents DOC from sharing immigrants’ locations, release dates, or criminal case information with ICE; and it bars local officials at any city-owned detention facility—including St. Elizabeths Hospital—from allowing ICE access to for the purpose of detaining someone.

The bill also would prevent the city from providing ICE with an office or any other equipment to help agents conduct a search for someone in custody, and it would require local officials to offer inmates the opportunity for counsel before allowing ICE agents to interview them.

Several immigration advocacy organizations in the area have been pushing for years for local officials to further curb their collaboration with federal agents. Allen has been working with advocates for several weeks now on this bill, according to two organizers who spoke with DCist.

“We saw an increase in the people being detained [by local authorities], released, and [subsequently] being taken into ICE custody and ultimately being deported,” says Claudia Quinonez, a field organizer with United We Dream’s DMV chapter. “We also saw an increase of fear in our community, we saw high school students and their families more afraid than ever before. So we decided to join forces … to fight for this and end the collaboration between the Department of Corrections and ICE.”

Policies around detainer requests have been a divisive issue nationally, but also locally: in Montgomery County, the arrest of several immigrants on sexual assault charges has set off a debate around whether localities should honor detainer requests for immigrants accused of crimes.

D.C. has formally billed itself a sanctuary for immigrants since the ’80s, adopting some policies that limit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities (preventing D.C. police from asking about people’s immigration status, for example). Mayor Muriel Bowser has affirmed the city’s commitment to those policies, and repeatedly called D.C. a sanctuary city. But as the Trump administration has ramped up and broadened enforcement actions against immigrants, there have been growing calls for the city to do more.

“I think the need for this is one for D.C. to sort of live up to its commitments of being a sanctuary city, and also to ensure that due process is met, and that we are ensuring the vital protections of due process are available to everyone in our city, including immigrants,” says Gaurav Madan, an organizer with the advocacy organization Sanctuary DMV.

Madan says the push for the bill was in part prompted by activists’ discovery that the D.C. DOC has been cooperating with ICE to hand off immigrants when they’re released from the local jail. In August, a Washington City Paper investigation found that the D.C. DOC had turned over at least 43 immigrants to ICE since 2016. And that’s just the ones it turned over inside a detention facility—there’s no telling how many got arrested outside a facility after the D.C. DOC notified ICE of an impending release.

Both Quinonez and Madan say they hope the bill will provide an increased sense of security for immigrants living in the District, though they believe there’s still work left to do to fortify the firewall between local and federal authorities.

“I think that this legislation will give a sense of stability, safety, and security in our community,” Quinonez says. “I think that once again, we’ll go back to living our best lives and thriving as a society.”