ICE did not actually raid the Shoreline Home Depot

A simple comment alleging that federal immigration officers were rounding up people at the Shoreline Home Depot quickly spread across social media and had neighbors deeply concerned.

The problem: it never happened.

The Facebook comment, posted on Wednesday, Feb. 22, alleged that officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were targeting the day labor crowd outside the store.

Related: Seattle attorney warns not to take Trump’s immigration order lightly

One account on Facebook stated:

I felt like I was in Berlin watching the brown shirts trash a ghetto. I don’t think it was sanctioned by the city. These guys were feds. There were no SPD in sight. There was a King County sheriff who was discretely directing other POC away from the area. She was Hispanic and told the Hispanic lady who was checking me out at the register not to go out to the parking lot … The lumber clerks were letting a group of painters bail out of the back door when I was buying wood…

There was a police presence outside the Shoreline Home Depot that day. This is what really happened, according to Cindy West with the King County Sheriff’s Office:

There was NO ICE or immigration related police activity at the Shoreline Home Depot earlier this week. We had a large police presence  related to a theft that occurred at a nearby apartment complex and the suspects were seen in the area of Home Depot.

Sheriff John Urquhart visited KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don Show to make sure the message was clear.

“There are two issues,” he said. “One is a supposed officer going around telling people ‘Don’t go to the Home Depot.’ The other is on Tuesday night there was a big ICE raid at the Home Depot. That is certainly not true. That never happened. I verified it. As for one of my deputies (telling people not to go to the Home Depot), I doubt that is happening.”

“I have not heard of any raids going on at any Home Depot much less the one in Shoreline,” Urquhart said.

Fear beyond the Shoreline Home Depot

Urquhart noted that the rumor around the Shoreline Home Depot is the latest incident involving fear among the immigrant community. It is a new fear that he has not encountered before.

“I went down to talk with … El Centro De La Raza, very well known in the community,” he said. “We made an appointment to come down because I wanted to reassure her that the sheriff’s office was not going to be doing anything differently. She called back and asked, ‘Could you ask the sheriff not to wear his uniform because we are afraid it might scare people.’ That was pretty amazing. I’ve never been faced with that before.”

Urquhart said he has also heard the immigrant community believes that ICE has been setting up road blocks to arrest people. That’s not true either, he said.

“Certainly the fear is palpable,” Urquhart said. “We’ve seen it, we’ve heard it. I can say unequivocally, you don’t need to fear the local police. Either the Seattle Police Department and certainly not the sheriff’s office. We don’t care if you are legal, illegal, documented or undocumented. That’s not something we are interested in.”

But he says he understands the fear, given the current political climate.

“Trump wants to add 5,000 border guards. He wants to add 10,000 ICE agents,” he said. “We are competing with Pierce County to hire 10 officers, so I think he’s going to have a heck of a problem doing that.”

Pierce County and immigration

Urquhart’s sentiment is echoed in Pierce County. Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department clarified when and why any deputy would call Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In short, they aren’t on the hunt for illegal immigrants.

“Right now, if you find somebody who maybe is an illegal immigrant or has a green card or a visa and they are in a minor problem, just like normal people, we aren’t calling ICE,” Troyer said. “We never have. That doesn’t happen.”

“On the other end, the homicidal drug cartel person – we don’t go that high either,” he said. “We have burglars, thieves, people committing felonies and they have warrants for their arrests – we are calling (ICE).”

“If you’re living in our county, don’t worry about it,” Troyer says to the local immigrant community. “Unless you’re dealing drugs, you shot somebody, you got a family full of burglars, thieves, then you should be worried about it.”

But for day-to-day law enforcement, Pierce County is not in the business of enforcing national immigration laws.

“We’re not getting involved,” Troyer said. “That’s never happened. I think there’s a lot of myths on both ends. We’ve never done that, we’ve never been requested to do that. Hopefully that never occurs because then there is a big rift between agencies.”

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