Editorial: Governor’s reasoned defiance to Bondi’s ICE demands

Published 1:30 am Saturday, August 23, 2025

By The Herald Editorial Board

Threats by the Trump administration regarding compliance with a range of its executive orders and demands — most of them constitutionally questionable if not laughable — to universities, law firms, corporations, nonprofits and state and local governments have been met from some corners by quiet acquiescence or a settlement’s malleability.

Only sometimes are they met with reasoned defiance.

Washington state and Gov. Bob Ferguson are taking that third option in response to the U.S. Attorney General Office’s demand — made to about three-dozen other state and local jurisdictions regarding their employment of so-called sanctuary policies — that those jurisdictions fully cooperate with the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, including allowing access to state corrections facilities and even deputizing local police agencies in actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal law enforcement agencies.

Heeding Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Aug. 19 deadline for a response to a letter she sent a week before accusing the state of using “so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies” to undermine cooperation and obstruct federal immigration enforcement, Ferguson wrote: “You are hereby notified that Washington State will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”

Ferguson, no stranger to defying Trump, as state attorney general filed nearly 100 lawsuits challenging Trump’s orders and actions in his first term. But not even this was “on his Bingo card” for the second term, the governor said Tuesday.

“That is breathtaking, and a letter like this cannot be normalized,” Ferguson said during a news conference announcing the response. “Let me be very clear. Washington state will not be bullied or intimidated by threats and legally baseless accusations.”

Bondi, in the Aug. 13 letter, warned of loss of federal grants, contracts and other funding and even criminal prosecution of state and local officials if steps were not taken to “eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement.”

In Washington state, that apparently includes a state law passed in 2019, the Keep Washington Working Act, that limits cooperation of local law enforcement with federal agencies in arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants. Except in limited instances, police are not allowed to ask about immigration status. The law also bars local law enforcement from arresting or detaining anyone on their immigration status alone and bars jails from holding those scheduled for release in order to allow arrest by federal authorities.

Refuting the federal attorney general’s allegation that such laws and policies are a threat to public safety, supporters of the legislation say the opposite is true.

The intention of the legislation, which had support from at least two Republicans in the House, was to strengthen public safety by allowing local law enforcement to focus on crime in their communities and not on immigration status, said state Rep. Lillian Ortiz-Self, D-Mukilteo, in a statement from the governor’s office.

“The overwhelming majority of immigrants in our state abide by the law, are hardworking, help our economy grow, and pay taxes. By ensuring Washington’s law enforcement agencies focus on community safety rather than hunting down immigrants, the Keep Washington Working Act is supporting businesses where all employees should work without fear,” said Ortiz-Self, who sponsored a companion House bill to the Senate legislation that year.

There’s concern that not only are immigration raids and actions keeping immigrants — regardless of legal status — from places of work, including farms, construction sites and care facilities, as well as schools and churches, but also that such forced cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration can detract from public safety in communities.

Ferguson defended the law on the same reasoning, following a Thursday appearance with U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-2nd Congressional District, at Lynnwood Elementary School, regarding food security.

“There are many reasons why I think the Keep Washington Working Act is a good law,” he said. “If there’s a key witness for criminal trial who’s undocumented, you want that person to feel comfortable going to a courthouse to testify. Let’s say a loved one of yours was harmed. You want that witness to come forward.”

“Our role here in Washington state is to have local law enforcement focus on local law enforcement,” he said. “That’s our job. Federal immigration enforcement is — guess what? — the federal government’s job.”

Ferguson, who had not received a response to his letter to Bondi as of Thursday morning, said he wasn’t cowed by threats of loss of federal funding or criminal prosecution.

“We’re not backing away from a bipartisan law that is lawful, in the face of the U.S. attorney general threatening jail time for state officials,” he said.

A series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions — among them New York v. United States in 1992, Printz v. United States in 1997 and Murphy v. NCAA in 2018, largely with conservative majorities — held that the 10th Amendment, which provides that the “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States … or to the people,” prohibits the federal government from “commandeering” state and local government or its agencies.

Along that line, a federal judge in late July dismissed a lawsuit brought by Bondi’s Department of Justice against the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago over “sanctuary” laws there, citing the Constitution’s 10th Amendment protections.

Recent polling by Gallup found that only 30 percent of Americans want to see a decrease in immigration in the U.S., compared to 55 percent a year ago, and a record high 79 percent consider immigration good for the country. At the same time, support has waned for mass deportation. Support for deporting all undocumented immigrants is now at 38 percent, down 9 percentage points from last year. At the same time, support for allowing undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship has risen from 70 percent last year to 78 percent now.

While the court of public opinion provides no legal support for laws and policies, the moral support for immigration and immigrants is increasing and should give Trump and Bondi pause regarding how far they want to push their efforts on immigration and how far they are willing to threaten state and local governments to do their dirty work.

“In our state, we’re not going to have local law enforcement assisting with ICE raids at businesses. We’re not going to have local law enforcement assisting masked ICE agents jumping out of unmarked cars and pulling people off the streets,” Ferguson said. “That’s not going to happen in Washington state. I don’t care what she says or what they do or what they threaten.”