Seattle City Attorney defends future of sanctuary city status amid Trump’s threat to hold funding

The Seattle City Attorney’s Office hopes to expand its staff in response to a surge of executive orders and directives from the Trump administration.

“We’ve had almost 100 executive orders so far just since President Trump was inaugurated,” Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison explained to “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “We also are monitoring all the litigation across the country while we do the rest of our work, which we can’t leave unattended. So I have asked for that. I was fiscally conservative in what I requested in the initial ask.”

One of the higher profile executive orders that Davison, a Republican, is working to address? Protecting the city’s sanctuary status.

Related from MyNorthwest: Sanctuary cities to see federal funding paused; city of Seattle responds

‘I have a problem with being coerced’

Early this month, Davison announced the city of Seattle has joined a coalition of municipalities across the country in a legal challenge against the Trump administration’s policies targeting sanctuary cities and counties. The lawsuit, filed on February 27, 2025, argues the administration’s executive orders and directives violate constitutional protections and infringe on local control.

At the time, Davison issued a statement emphasizing Seattle’s long-standing position as a “welcoming city” and its refusal to be “co-opted” into federal immigration enforcement. She asserted the city’s policies are legal and designed to ensure public safety by fostering trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

When asked if she doesn’t like that the federal government has an issue with sanctuary cities, she responded, “What I do have a problem with is being coerced … the threat to withhold federal funds and an issue about local problems and local control of how we tell our police to do their work.”

“So what I do stand for is that the rule of law is paramount, and it applies to everyone, and everyone must follow it, and that does include our president,” she added.

Related from MyNorthwest: Washington state AG sues Adams County over immigration enforcement

‘The law applies to everybody’

Davison said she is working to improve public safety by working with the mayor and city council and that withholding federal funding does not help. She noted those funds are also related to critical projects, for example, infrastructure for earthquakes.

Davison also shared concerns about what an immigration crackdown could mean to pursuing certain cases. She said she needs victims who are willing to speak to law enforcement and participate in investigations, as 80% of the crime in Seattle is misdemeanor crime.

Critics of the president’s immigration crackdown argue that victims or witnesses, who are in this country illegally, may not feel comfortable coming forward if there is fear the local police will help federal immigration enforcement.

“I am not a felony prosecutor. I am a misdemeanor prosecutor, and I don’t see what I’m saying is anything contrary to what I’ve always stood for, which, again, is that the law applies to everybody, and everyone should be accountable to it,” she said.

Seattle becomes ‘welcoming city’ following 9/11

Davison added that Seattle’s “welcoming city” ordinance has been in place since 2003, following 9/11.

When asked what Seattle can offer to still receive federal funding, Davison pleaded for people to come together.

“What I do see, and sadly in politics, is people want to be extreme and want to create opposition and make it us versus them,” she shared. “And I would talk to the everyday listener of your show and say, ‘Please try to restrain yourself from going to your far corner that you feel inclined to go towards, drop the rhetoric that’s coming from the opposite side, and think about what is the best way to make the systems function together.'”

Davison believes Seattle’s ordinance allows for a balance of asylum and having a safe community.

“It was not done in response to anything other than people in our community, wrongly targeted post 9/11 and to make people feel safe in that time period, because there was a lot of fear at that time,” she said.

More from MyNorthwest: Washington House passes bill that could majorly redefine ‘excessive speeding’

Contributing: Matt Markovich and Frank Lenzi, KIRO Newsradio; MyNorthwest Staff

Listen to “The John Curley Show” weekday afternoons from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio.