City leaders could reaffirm the resolution a previous council adopted eight years before declaring Auburn to be “a welcoming city,” an “all-inclusive city.”

Or, as Deputy Mayor Largo Wales put it, they could “step things up,” adopt an ordinance that tells the federal government the City will not ask its police officers to act as deputies for Immigration, Customs Enforcement officers come to Auburn to round up undocumented residents for deportation.

City leaders at a work session Monday at City Hall split on which option they would support, council members Bob Baggett, Claude DaCorsi and Yolanda Manuel-Trout favoring the resolution, with Wales, Rich Wagner and Bill Peloza supporting the ordinance.

Only John Holman did not express his preference.

When the issue comes back before the City Council at 7 p.m., Monday, May 15 for official action, however, all seven members of the City Council will be asked to choose.

At the May 1 regular council meeting, a chamber full of advocates for undocumented immigrants spent more than an hour urging council members to go whole hog and declare Auburn a sanctuary city. City officials remain unwilling to do that, however, because of the federal government’s continuing threat to withhold millions in federal funding from such cities.

Trout responded to criticism leveled against the Council at that earlier meeting that it had not heard what advocates for the undocumented were saying. She noted that a council ad-hoc committee, of which she is a member, between this week and last spent three hours poring over all the information it had on the issue, including the testimony.

“I was very offended myself because we have been working very, very hard on this issue, we hear every single one of you. … We have come to your table, we have come to your meetings, we have heard every word that you have said. But we have 78,000 people that we have to be concerned about as well,” Trout-Manuel said.

DaCorsi repeated a point he made at the May 1 council meeting — that, ordinance or not, the federal government would simply ignore any legislation the City passes, do what it wanted.

Quoting Auburn Police Chief Bob Lee, DaCorsi said Auburn police officers never ask people about their immigration status, but after the arrest and jailing of a suspect, the federal government can and does monitor his or her status.

“We are not the police agency at SCORE that chooses to go in and do anything with any inmate at the SCORE jail,” DaCorsi said, noting however, that the jail has a list that ICE may look at. And, he said, the City does not hold arrestees for the federal government.

“Our police department personnel do not arrest or detain anybody without probable cause. And once you’re in that situation, the legal process takes over. So my opinion is, when I look at a piece of legislation that creates a law, we need to understand what this law is going to do for the 78,000 people in Auburn; we need to understand what this law is going to do to better serve our police officers in our community to do their jobs,” DaCorsi said.

Baggett expressed his preference for a resolution, “not an ordinance, not a law.”

“We have police policies …they are very clear, and that is what our police go by,” Baggett said.

Safety first

Trout-Manuel said she does not want language, such as the ordinance would contain, tying the hands of police officers should dangerous situations spin out of control, and ICE call for assistance.

“Public safety comes first,” Trout-Manuel said.

City Attorney Dan Heid said neither the resolution nor the ordinance contain any language that prevents mutual aid between ICE and the APD, and both say basically the same thing about the conditions that would arise making it proper to legally reveal one’s immigration status.

“My heart tells me if they both allow for mutual aid, which protects our citizens and our residents who may not be citizens and our police officers, and they both limit snooping into someone’s immigration status unless it naturally unfolds for some criminal activity, I feel in my heart that, because of this issue, it deserves more attention than a resolution,” Wales said.

“… It might be a little overkill,” Wales added of the ordinance, “but it gives (advocates) a win … without us having to step up there where it might be a potential loss as it relates to sanctuary cities. So, it’s a roundabout way, but to me, it speaks to the heart.”

Wagner argued that there is no clause in the resolution that addresses mutual aid, whereas, he added, the ordinance lays it out directly in the following language: “Nothing in the Auburn City Code shall be construed to restrict or prohibit any City officer or employee from participating in cross-designation, or task force activities with federal law force enforcement authorities.”

“That’s my problem with the resolution and the ordinance: the ordinance has a lot of specifics, and the resolution essentially depends on the mayor doing the right administrative procedures,” Wagner said.

“Looking at both the resolution and the ordinance, I agree with comments said before this body that taking a step up to an ordinance makes more sense than a resolution,” Peloza said. “The ordinance has more body to it than the resolution.”