A D.C. Council committee is recommending the city’s police department end cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one day after officials say an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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The recommendation also comes after council members heard testimony from dozens of residents in October.
“I’m grieving for Minneapolis, and I’m also very worried that that could very easily happen here, with the heavy presence of ICE and other federal law enforcement,” Ward 1 Council member Brianne Nadeau told WTOP.
The Committee on Public Works and Operations heard from 53 witnesses who detailed accounts with ICE in the city.
“We had countless testimony of people who observed men and women walking down the street being stopped, people on the way to work being pulled over,” Nadeau said. “They’re being taken and their vehicles are being left on the road, parents being taken in front of their children and the children being left behind.”
The report from the Committee on Public Works and Operations recommends both the mayor and D.C. police chief end any cooperation with ICE. It also urges banning the use of masks by ICE agents and requiring badges and agency identification.
The committee said tweaks to current laws are also needed.
“We passed the Sanctuary Values Act in 2020; there should be no cooperation with ICE,” Nadeau said. “The chief found a loophole, found a way to cooperate. We’ve got to close that loophole.”
ICE has said that its collaboration with D.C. police has assisted with the arrest of alleged criminals, including a Mexican national previously charged with sex crimes against a child.
“MPD has the tools they need to go after someone who committed violence, sexual violence. They don’t need the civil enforcement folks at Homeland Security to back them up on that,” Nadeau said.
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