Inslee immigration order has ‘unintended consequences’

An executive order signed by Washington Governor Jay Inslee aims to draw a line between local police and federal immigration enforcement. It’s proving to make things difficult for officers.

“I think everybody has the same goal,” Steve Strachan told Dori Monson. “We want to keep truly bad, violent guys from doing bad things. But there’s a lot of unintended consequences as we move along. I would say the governor’s office has been open-minded about this. They understand it. They want to work together to find ways to fix this.”

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Strachan is executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. He’s pointing out a flaw in an executive order signed by Inslee in February 2017. The order counters Trump administration immigration policies. State agencies are not allowed to share information that could lead to the discovery of a person’s immigration status. But it has proven to be difficult as state agencies try to work together.

“State resources cannot be used, by his order, for immigration enforcement,” Strachan said. “What’s been going on since; state agencies like the department of licensing have been trying to comply with the governor’s order as best they can. But it’s a complicated issue.”

“These different databases are connected because they should be,” he said. “When we work with folks like the FBI, we need to know what everyone else is doing and have good information. So it’s led to unintended consequences and I think that’s what we are seeing now.”

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For example, the Washington State Department of Licensing told police it would no longer provide them social security numbers. That information could be used for immigration enforcement. However, that information is also used for gun control regulations and other protections.

“This change with social security means that it will be more difficult to do background checks for pistol transfers, conceal permits, and the important one is for protective orders … things like domestic violence,” Strachan said.

“One of our chiefs mentioned to me that ‘We don’t do immigration enforcement, we understand that … but we have other important enforcement to do,’” he said. “We have to be mindful of how these decisions … affect the ability to do enforcement that has nothing to do with immigration.”