After hundreds of demonstrators rallied against Trump’s ongoing immigration enforcement crackdown last week, Philadelphia councilmembers are set to introduce legislation to limit the activities of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the city.
Councilmembers Rue Landau and Kendra Brooks unveiled the package — which would enshrine Philadelphia as a “welcoming city” — in a Jan. 27 press conference. If passed, the legislation would prohibit federal immigration officers from obscuring their identity and prohibit city agencies from cooperating with ICE.
The legislation would also prevent ICE from organizing raids on city property and ban city employees from providing immigration data to the agency. Landau and Brooks cited the recent shootings of Minneapolis residents Alex Pretti and Renee Good by ICE as the impetus for the legislation.
In the press conference, Brooks laid out three key facets of the policy: keeping ICE “out of the shadows,” “out of our data,” and “out of public spaces and services.”
“As a city government, we have the power to set clear limits on what happens for city-owned property and what city employees can or cannot do,” Brooks said.
Brooks — who claimed that ICE “is already here in Philadelphia” — said she wouldn’t wait “for another person to be publicly murdered before we take action on this issue.”
Landau, who said that the legislative package had been in progress for months, wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that the policy is intended to “push ICE out of our neighborhoods.” If passed, the package would prohibit public employees from granting ICE access to city spaces such as shelters or libraries.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said during the Jan. 27 conference that the city would “fight against federal overreach.”
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“We are the ones who believe in law and order,” he said. “They are the ones who believe in crime and disorder, and we are going to do something about it.”
In a statement to the DP, Philadelphia Councilmember Jamie Gauthier — whose district includes Penn and University City — wrote that City Council had an "obligation to keep Philadelphians safe and build trust between residents and their local government.”
Pennsylvania state Sen. Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia) — who introduced a bill with similar protections against ICE in Harrisburg — wrote in a statement to the DP that the City Council legislation “harnesses national energy and channels it into a concrete legislative plan” to “protect everyone who lives in and visits our city from a masked militia.”
“We need immediate action and accountability at all levels of government to push back against the violence and chaos wrought by the recklessness of DHS and ICE. Emboldened by a would-be dictator, these agencies are abducting neighbors, terrorizing our communities, and making all of us less safe,” Saval wrote.
Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-188) said in a statement to the DP that ICE was “operating as a fascist secret police,” and that it must be “disempowered, dismantled, and ultimately abolished.”
The package of bills is expected to be introduced in the City Council on Thursday. After its introduction, it will need to be approved by the City Council before being brought to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker — who graduated from the Fels Institute of Government in 2016 — will sign it into law.
The legislation comes after hundreds of people gathered in Center City on Jan. 23 to protest the deployment of ICE officers to Minneapolis.
The day of the press conference, over 120 elected officials and organizations signed a letter to Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) urging them to vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security.
The letter claimed that Congress is “planning to reward” the Department of Homeland Security with funding rather than holding it “accountable” and called the possibility of funding the department “a failure of leadership” that “violates basic standards of accountability and is a serious breach of public trust.”
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Senior reporter Arti Jain covers state and local politics and can be reached at jain@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies economics and political science. Follow her on X @arti_jain_.
