Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
The city council voted 9-2 on a resolution calling for "strategies to protect all San Antonians" instructing staff to find ways of supporting people who are impacted by immigration enforcement.
The resolution asks city staff to explore feasibility of providing know-your-rights training, to determine if a moratorium on federal detention centers in the city is possible, and to secure potential justice funds for nonprofits and people facing immigration cases, among several other initiatives.
District 9 Councilwoman Misty Spears and District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte were the only no votes.
The resolution was triggered at the request of four council members — Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2), Edward Mungia (D4), Teri Castillo (D5) and Ric Galvan (D6) — in a memo filed last month. The focus was to identify ways the city could intervene in the creation of the federal detention center and other methods of providing support to immigrants.
McKee-Rodriguez said the memo was filed to show that the city would not be complicit in any harm against the community, and that any cooperation be limited strictly to what is legally required.
“Our duty is to protect the safety and welfare of our constituents, and when that is violated, especially when their constitutional rights are violated, I think we need to take every step possible to provide them justice,” he said on Thursday before the vote.
Some of the terms include conducting evaluations on:
- A moratorium on the establishment for non-municipal detention facilities,
- Inclusion of federal legislation and action to prevent and/or end the use of any facility in San Antonio the city’s legislative agenda
- Development of training for City staff on rights and responsibilities related to the prevention of harm caused by immigration enforcement;
- Evaluate opportunities to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable
- Establishment of public signage informing residents and business-owners of their rights
Resolutions are mostly symbolic but are official stances of the city council and City of San Antonio. The resolution approved on Thursday is a direction for city staff to provide updates to the council.
City attorneys broke down the requests into 26 sections based on what was already being done, what was doable or being evaluated, and what would be high-risk for the city.
First Assistant City Attorney Liz Provencio told council members the city would evaluate what’s possible under law.
“We want to be sure that there's no mis-met expectations, because we will not be able to prevent immigration enforcement within San Antonio, and so we just want to reiterate the constraints that we have to live within,” she said.
Provencio cautioned that some actions could risk grant money from the federal government or run against state laws like SB4 — a law from 2017 that the city sued the state of Texas over but parts of which were allowed to go forward.
More than 30 people signed up to speak on Thursday with the vast majority in favor of the resolution or a similar action. Two recent council meetings on immigration enforcement have also seen high numbers of attendees.
Priscilla Olivares, a senior policy attorney with the Immigration Legal Resource Center told the council that she wants to see transparency and accountability for collaboration efforts with ICE.
“ICE wants us to believe we are powerless. ICE wants you to believe that you are powerless. This is yet another lie from the administration. Yes, city council must comply with state laws, and that includes SB4 (2017) but our constitution still matters,” she said.
The council recessed into executive session for about 90 minutes to ask lingering legal questions to city attorneys before offering their own comments and ultimately approving the resolution.
Councilwoman Misty Spears said she believed the immigration detention center was necessary due to policy decisions and mistakes made by the previous administration that needed correcting.
“Engaging in interference of federal law enforcement at the local level is ineffective, irresponsible and dangerous. What's being proposed here, blocking permits, denying utilities, penalizing local business owners, violating private property rights or otherwise trying to obstruct a federal detention facility is not only misguided, it is legally futile.”
San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said believes the issues of ICE operations in the city and the proposed detention center would affect the entire city.
“None of this is exclusive to one district, allegations of violations of constitutional rights in Military City, USA, where a large number of folks have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution, I think is something that this community would uniquely take offense to, in light also of our demographics,”
City Manager Erik Walsh promised a March 5 update to the city council on a timeline for determining the city’s options.
