SNOHOMISH — In the coming weeks, city leaders will explore making Snohomish a sanctuary city for unauthorized immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community from a request from Councilman David Flynn.
“I hope to see protections for all people groups, including immigrants and LGBTQ+,” Flynn said in an interview about the request. He said he wanted to start the conversation.
Late last month, the City of Olympia’s council unanimously expanded its sanctuary city rules from 2016 that protect unauthorized immigrants to protect LGBTQ+ people. The Olympian newspaper reports Olympia’s expanded laws includes statements of maintaining the privacy of the birth gender of individuals, and to oppose government actions at state and federal levels that may interfere with the safety and dignity of LGBTQ+ people.
Olympia’s sanctuary city law contains stipulations about immigration. For example, it outlines it will refuse to aid in requests for help with immigration enforcement, and prohibits Olympia Police or municipal government employees to ask for immigration status during interactions.
Flynn foresees Snohomish’s language could be modeled after the City of Olympia’s.
A majority of council members last week said they were open to learning more.
A workshop to discuss the idea will be scheduled this month or next month.
The new US Attorney General, Pam Bondi, on Feb. 5 paused federal funding to sanctuary cities that limit federal enforcement of immigration. Bondi’s actions follow executive orders from President Donald Trump to lawfully halt immigration-related sanctuary cities from receiving federal funds “to the maximum extent possible under law.”
Flynn said that news “certainly is concerning.”
Prior to Bondi’s decisions, Flynn said at the Feb. 4 council meeting that he’d “implore we do not put finances before people.”
According to the City of Olympia’s own law, “Washington’s population grew by forty thousand (40,000) unauthorized residents between 2009 and 2014, making our state one of just six in the country with a growing unauthorized population.”
“The Advocate,” a national LGTBQ+ publication, reports Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Kansas City, Missouri, all have passed similar measures to block any federal act which could penalize transgender adults and children for seeking gender-affirming health care and health care systems that provide it.
Washington state already has laws upholding gender-affirming health care for transgender people.
