King County sheriff draws firm line on ICE, says deputies will not assist on immigration matters

King County Sheriff Patty Cole-Tindall is drawing a firm line on how her office interacts with federal immigration authorities, saying deputies will not assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on routine immigration matters.

“We do have policy for our deputies around interactions with ICE, and our general policy is we do not cooperate with ICE for administrative matters,” Cole-Tindall said.

Cole-Tindall said the sheriff’s office has not received any requests from ICE to have deputies assist with enforcement operations. But, if that happens, she said the policy is clear.

“We actually have not had any requests from ICE,” Cole-Tindall said.

Protocols for King County deputy contact with ICE

She explained that civil immigration enforcement, including questions about a person’s citizenship, is off-limits for her deputies. Cooperation is limited to criminal cases where there is a signed court order from a judge.

“Anything related to somebody’s citizenship, things like that, only if there is a signed court order by a judge, and that’s for a criminal matter,” Cole-Tindall said.

Cole-Tindall said the sheriff’s office has formal protocols for deputies who encounter ICE agents in the field.

“We do have protocols where they are supposed to notify chain of command, obviously their supervisor immediately, but they know that they are not to assist or even engage with ICE,” she said.

Federal funding and legal pushback

The sheriff also pointed to pressure from the federal government, saying some grant funding has been tied to immigration cooperation requirements.

She noted that King County receives some of this grant money but has joined lawsuits with other jurisdictions across the country challenging the federal government’s attempts to attach immigration-related conditions to funding.

“There have been some, I’ll say, communications from the federal government, like attached to grants, that would require a jurisdiction to agree to certain things,” Cole-Tindall said. “King County has joined some lawsuits with other jurisdictions around the country related to saying we don’t think that that is fair or appropriate.”

Together, Cole-Tindall’s comments highlight King County’s stance that local law enforcement should not be drawn into federal civil immigration enforcement, except under judge-signed criminal court orders.

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