Pittsburgh City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to prohibit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, following in the footsteps of their county counterparts.
“I feel very strongly that this is the right thing to do,” Councilman Bob Charland, D-South Side, said ahead of a preliminary vote last week. “I wish we had power to go further. We don’t. But I think this is a good first step.”
The legislation bars the city from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, following significant criticisms of the agency amid a massive crackdown on immigrants locally and across the nation. Allegheny County recently approved a similar measure.
The measure prohibits city employees or contractors from asking about someone’s immigration status, bans law enforcement action based on a person’s immigration status and forbids city workers from giving federal immigration officers access to people in city custody.
It stops the city from entering any 287(g) agreements, which allow federal immigration agencies to partner with local law enforcement. Some local communities, including Springdale, have entered into such deals.
“It is our duty as the council to protect our residents in every way we can,” Councilwoman Barb Warwick, D-Greenfield, said during a council meeting last week. “That’s what this bill is about really.”
Mayor Corey O’Connor has promised not to cooperate with ICE, continuing a stance taken by former Mayor Ed Gainey.
‘City of immigrants’
Warwick acknowledged that Pittsburgh officials cannot stop ICE from operating within the city.
“We certainly can make it clear we are not going to participate in any way in that activity,” she said.
Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill, called the measure a “moral imperative.”
Ilyas Khan, a Point Breeze resident who addressed council Tuesday morning, voiced support for the legislation.
“I think all of us here know very well that this is a city of immigrants, that it has always been a city of immigrants,” he said.
Immigrants, Khan said, create a “rich and diverse tapestry” in the city.
“When we begin to question people’s fundamental right to be a part of this tapestry, we have lost everything that makes this city what it is,” he said.
Surveillance technology
Council also unanimously approved a bill that orders the Department of Innovation & Performance to create a report on all surveillance technologies funded or used by the city.
The legislation lists automatic license plate readers, closed-circuit television cameras, biometric surveillance technology, social media monitoring software and a slew of other technologies that must be considered in the report.
Two other related bills — which designate certain city-owned properties “safe community places,” where federal immigration officers would be barred from nonpublic areas — are still being considered. Council paused the measures last week, as some members asked for further input from the city’s law department.
Councilwoman Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, said the intent was to codify that the city would not lease certain properties to federal immigration agencies who may want to set up staging areas on city property.
Council President R. Daniel Lavelle, D-Hill District, said he wanted to ensure he and his colleagues passed something “legally defensible” and clear to the public. As the legislation is currently written, he said, people may think the city is barring ICE from being in any city-owned property, which officials can’t do.
“My concern is potentially passing a bill that says to the public, ‘If you step inside this building, you are protected,’ when, in fact, that’s actually not the case,” Lavelle said during last week’s meeting. “I just struggle with signaling to the public one thing when that’s actually not enforceable.”
That legislation will come before council for further consideration Wednesday.
