Seattle Mayor Calls Trump 'Despot' For Sanctuary City Threat

SEATTLE, WA — President Donald Trump is threatening to send undocumented people from the Mexico border to sanctuary cities, which would include places Seattle, King County, and others around the region. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan responded to the threat with an op-ed in the Washington Post, calling Trump a "would-be despot who thinks the rule of law does not apply to him."

"Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only," Trump tweeted early Friday morning.

In a separate statement, Durkan called on Congress to stop Trump from using migrants as "political pawns."

"It is time for Congress to act to stop the President’s repeated attempts to punish perceived enemies and stop his cruel, divisive, and unlawful attacks on our immigrant and refugee communities. This threat is yet another inhumane proposal from a White House that continues to separate children from parents and hold them in deplorable conditions," she said in a statement.

This isn't the first threat Trump has made over Seattle and King County's sanctuary policies.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice sent King County Councilman Joe McDermott a letter warning that federal grant money might be pulled because of sanctuary policies. Seattle got a similar letter.

The definition of a "sanctuary" varies between cities, but locally it means that police are generally not allowed to ask about a person's immigration status. The King County Jail, for example, does not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold requests.

Still, ICE has been able to arrest plenty of undocumented people in the Seattle area. A recent University of Washington study showed that ICE agents were arresting people on the streets in sanctuary jurisdictions rather than at local jails. ICE officers made 3,431 arrests in King County between October 2014 and May 2018. Only 16.6 percent of those arrests were made at the King County Jail, the lowest jail-to-ICE rate in the state.

In one recent instance, ICE officers waited outside the Seattle Municipal Court to arrest one person. The man was in court to face a theft charge for stealing about $100 in merchandise from the Dearborn Street Goodwill thrift store.

Trump framed his new proposal as good news for sanctuary jurisdictions — sarcastically, of course.

"The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy — so this should make them very happy!" he wrote on Twitter Friday.

Durkan said in her op-ed that Seattle is not afraid of accepting immigrants and refugees.

"In Seattle, we know that our immigrant and refugee communities make our city a stronger, more vibrant place," she wrote.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Department of Homeland Security and White House officials have said that Trump's proposal is empty.

"This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected," those officials to the Post.