Memphis City Council passes resolution condemning ICE enforcement

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add additional clarity about the council’s request for funding to be withheld for ICE.

The Memphis City Council on Feb. 24 passed a resolution condemning the actions of American immigration officers across the country. The resolution also requested Congress withhold some funding for U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies until “meaningful and significant guardrails” are applied.

The resolution has no binding power, but acts as an official statement of the body. It was sponsored by Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas. Councilwoman Jerri Green said official letters would be sent to federal officials following the resolution’s passage. The resolution specifically requested funding be withheld from ICE, not all homeland security activities.

The resolution passed committee without opposition, but Councilmen Ford Canale, Chase Carlisle and Philip Spinosa were not present for the vote.

During full council, Spinosa voted against the resolution. Councilmembers Canale, Rhonda Logan, and Yolanda Cooper-Sutton abstained from the vote. Councilmembers Easter-Thomas, Green, Edmund Ford, Sr., Pearl Walker, Jeff Warren, Janika White, and Jana Swearengen-Washington voted in favor of it.

Specifically, the resolution calls for “an end” to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s “lawless surges in cities across the country that are undermining public safety,” a requirement that immigration enforcement agents have to get a warrant, a ban on agents wearing masks, a ban on targeting people based on race or accents, and a ban on “enforcement at sensitive locations” such as schools, churches, and hospitals.

It also calls for cuts in the DHS budget to be reappropriated to housing and healthcare.

The resolution points to the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of Silverio Villegas Gonzáles in Chicago as evidence of abuse, saying ICE and border patrol agents “have violently arrested civilians, including U.S. citizens, and deployed chemical weapons without warning in residential areas, harming school children and local law enforcement.”

It also says immigration detention facilities are “rapidly deteriorating” and are growing increasingly overcrowded.