In the meeting focused on the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell on Sunday pledged his support to West Seattle Indivisible.

But he also acknowledged that the details of how the city and its police department should respond to raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement remains unclear.

“I will protect your rights as protesters,” Harrell said to the standing room only crowd at the Center for Active Living. “This is our time to shine. This is our time to shine as a region to show what our country stands for.”

He called the crackdowns that feature armed and often masked ICE agents who arrest people on the street, in parking lots and at businesses “one of the most atrocious policies in our lifetime.”

The Seattle Police Department will not cooperate with ICE, Harrell said. Nor will police cooperate with federal troops if they are deployed to enforce immigration crackdowns here, he said.

In a response to a question, he said police actions at a protest in June against ICE at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building are under review. Police made some arrests at that protest, where protestors set up barricades to block the vehicles of federal agents.

Several of those who attended the meeting wanted to know how police will respond to an ICE raid. Harrell said that question is made more complicated because in some cases imposters have posed as agents,

Also complicating matters is that ICE does not alert local police to its raids.

Police can’t interfere with federal agents, Harrell said. “Our officers are not going to get into fisticuffs or arrests with ICE agents.”

He urged people who are worried that ICE agents have committed crimes to call 911.

But he said it’s unclear to his police department, as well as to police departments across the country, whether local officers can ask to see ICE agents’ indentification and documents that support the raid and arrests.

“No mayor anywhere in the country has this figured out,” Harrell said.

Seattle police and their counterparts across the country are working on ways to respond to the raids, he said.

Resources for immigrants, including how to respond to federal agents and what their rights are can be found at the City of Seattle’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

The meeting with the Mayor came about after WSI organized a community meetup at Alki last weekend to reflect on the passage of the BBB. Many members asked us to find out what Seattle was planning to do when ICE ramps up raids in our city. Mayor Harrell said the City would work with WSI and other groups to come up with actions citizens can do.

We will let you know anything we hear from the Mayor’s Office via our website, social media and newsletters.

Sign up here for Rapid Response Training July 31st to learn what you can do when you see an ICE raid.

Facilities at The Center For Active Living have been rented for this event. In so renting its facilities, The Center for Active Living does not either endorse nor disapprove of this event