KENNEWICK — City leaders in Sunnyside dispelled rumors this week that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were teeing up raids in the city as President Donald Trump came into power.
“The Sunnyside Police Department is not conducting any immigration enforcement, nor are we coordinating with ICE on any type of raid in our city,” said City Manager Mike Gonzalez, who said he’d received several calls and seen social media posts about circulated rumors.
Similarly in the Tri-Cities, Kennewick, Pasco and Richland city leaders said this week they were unaware of any planned immigration enforcement actions in their areas.
About 87% of the Central Washington community of Sunnyside identifies as either Hispanic or Latino, according to 2024 U.S. Census estimates. It’s situated in the middle Yakima Valley, an agriculture mecca that produces a bulk of the region’s hops, asparagus and fresh fruit exports.
“In a community with a large Latino population, these are real fears,” said Gonzalez. “The majority of our population has ties to Mexico, and with some of the reports we are hearing out of the new president’s office, rumors can spread very quickly in our city.”
“I can assure you those are lies if someone is telling you that raids are being conducted in Sunnyside. We are taking our direction from the governor’s office and we won’t ever aide, assist or actively participate in raids of any sort,” he continued.
Police Chief Rob Layman echoed Gonzalez’s comments, adding that those actions aren’t the “function” nor jurisdiction of local police departments.
Local law enforcement agencies — including city and county civilian forces — do not enforce federal laws or immigration enforcement, and are unable to assist without state authority. They also do not inquire about immigration status during traffic stops or when making arrests.
Gonzalez says it’s not just undocumented residents who are concerned about immigration enforcement — legal residents and workers here on visas also fear they may be arrested indiscriminately by ICE.
That insecurity has a fiscal impact on local businesses, says Gonzalez, who separately serves on the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs.
Sunnyside is not a “sanctuary city” — a term that refers to a municipality’s unwillingness to cooperate with federal government to enforce immigration laws — but is focused on ensuring residents “feel safe, valued and are an important part of our community,” Gonzalez said.
Washington, however, became a “sanctuary state” in 2019 after the first Trump Administration cracked down on migrant detentions and attempted to cancel Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the federal program protecting children of undocumented immigrants.
More than 14,000 residents in the Evergreen State are on DACA status, making it a top 10 state in number of “Dreamers.” These people routinely face several challenges, including reduced access to government services and difficulty accessing higher education.
President Trump was inaugurated Monday, his campaign vowing to implement the “largest deportation operation in American history” to curb crime.
His first executive orders included reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy for asylum seekers and declaring a national emergency at the southern border with Mexico.
Then, on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Biden-era protections on so-called “sensitive areas” that restricted ICE and Customs and Border Protection from making arrests in spaces like hospitals, schools and churches.
Trump also signed an order Monday ending birthright citizenship for U.S. citizens born from undocumented immigrants, a move that earned swift legal blow back from 22 states suing to block it, among them Washington.
Washington’s newly elected Attorney General Nick Brown called Trump’s order to overturn the citizenship clause “unconstitutional” and “simply un-American.”
“Washington state will not abide such harmful and unjust action. That’s why we’re leading a lawsuit with Oregon, Arizona and Illinois to stop it,” Brown said.
It’s not the first time Washington has tested the legal viability of Trump’s directives in court. In 2017, then-Attorney General Bob Ferguson led Washington and several other Democrat-leaning states in challenging Trump’s travel ban on Muslim countries.
