A coalition of advocates focused on ending Arlington County police’s voluntary cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a detailed policy proposal on Thursday, outlining their plan for how Arlington County can cut all voluntary ties with the federal immigration enforcement agency.

For the past year, activists in the county have been pushing officials to revise its guidance around cooperation with ICE, which they say is too broad and leaves too many opportunities for county residents to be funneled to deportation proceedings.

Last month, the Arlington County Board released a framework for drafting updates to its policies on ICE, which included fairly broad language about access to services and information and a reiterated commitment to not use Arlington’s resources to facilitate the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Arlington County Board chair Matt de Ferranti said he hopes to have a finalized, revised countywide ICE policy by the end of the year.

The board is accepting written public comments on the policy through Nov. 5, and is planning an upcoming listening session to hear from community members.

De Ferranti said he had not gotten a chance to read the proposal from advocates as of Thursday afternoon, and that he would need to do that before offering a specific comment — but he expressed broad support for ending voluntary collaboration with ICE.

“We generally don’t work with ICE. There are some legal requirements where we must,” said de Ferranti. “We’ve been engaged in some work on how to take the next steps and affirmatively clarify our practice of not working with ICE unless we are legally required to do so.”

Beatriz Mejia, an Arlington resident who organizes with La ColectiVA, spoke at a Thursday press conference announcing the advocates’ proposal. She said she and her family had directly experienced abuse from ICE agents and the threat of deportation.

“There’s often a lot of fear in our communities around speaking up,” she said. “We want to make sure the County Board listens to us and adopts what we are asking for.”

The suggested plan — released Thursday by the local activist group La ColectiVA, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and Legal Aid Justice Center — outlines how Arlington County could end its voluntary cooperation with federal immigration enforcement entirely. The proposal aims to strengthen confidentiality policies around personally identifiable information and stipulate that Arlington County bar federal immigration authorities from access to county facilities, property, equipment, records, databases and funds unless required to by the law or a binding warrant or court order.

The policy would also prohibit Arlington County police from voluntarily aiding any kind of enforcement of federal immigration laws. Currently, Arlington County police have no authority to stop or arrest people based on their immigration status, but the police department’s general order states that “[t]his does not preclude the Department from cooperating with and assisting federal immigration officials when requested or from notifying those officials in serious situations where a potential threat to the public safety is perceived.”

Similarly to the County Board, the Arlington police department is in the process of revising its rules for police interactions with undocumented residents.

Kristin Donovan, an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, said Arlington’s current policy is harmful because it “does not explicitly forbid the police from providing support to ICE enforcement operations. This collaboration is voluntary, it’s unnecessary and it’s harmful to the community. It’s not required by any state or federal law. And it has a detrimental impact on the community here in Arlington.”

In addition, Donovan said, many of the legal center’s clients have been detained or deported by ICE after passing through Arlington’s jail — though that process is controlled by the sheriff’s office, which operates independently of the Arlington County government.

“We urge the county to use all means possible to influence the policies of the sheriff department,” said Donovan. De Ferranti said that though the sheriff’s office is independent, he is in conversation with Arlington County Sheriff Beth Arthur about how they can collaborate to clarify practices to end voluntary collaboration with ICE.

The proposal also seeks to expand the kinds of documents police and county employees can accept to verify a person’s address or other information — and stipulates that presenting an alternate form of identification should not subject anyone in the county to a higher level of scrutiny or different treatment by police.

“We are pushing to make sure that every single person has the opportunity to be in their communities, to be with their homes, to be with their support systems,” said Danny Cendejas, an organizer with La ColectiVA. “We believe in making sure that we’re able to support folks instead of criminalizing them.”

Arlington County officials have expressed support for revising their policies surrounding ICE and strengthening protections for undocumented residents — but de Ferranti has also said there may be limits to how far he would want to go. Speaking on Thursday, he said he wants to do more listening, but at this time he could see cases where police could contact federal immigration enforcement when there is a significant risk of violence.

“We just want to keep it narrowly focused on when there’s a risk to our community … and there are some instances, where there is violence involved, then in those limited cases, I could see working to keep our community safe using any tool, including federal tools,” said de Ferranti.

De Ferranti also said there may be instances where the county is legally required to use federal databases — a point he was working to further clarify.

“I need to understand all of the details and the specifics of when the federal government … can act irrespective of what we might want to do,” he said. “I don’t believe there are many instances, but I don’t want to say there are none before I’ve done the research to be sure.”

The revision process underway in Arlington is part of a broader reexamination of ICE collaboration from northern Virginia localities. Fairfax County recently put in place a Trust Policy and new police general orders, which establish strict data-sharing requirements and limit the circumstances under which police are allowed to respond to requests for ICE assistance.

And last year, Prince William County ended its 287(g) policy, a controversial collaboration with ICE that allowed the agency to deputize local law enforcement.

Previously:
Arlington County Is Reassessing Rules For Cooperation With ICE