Trump threatens Washington funding in executive order targeting sanctuary states

President Donald Trump sent a message to Washington state officials Friday when he signed an executive order designating nearly the entire state as part of what he called “sanctuary jurisdictions,” for which he earlier had threatened to cut off federal funding.

The list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” appears to name every Washington county except Adams. The list included Spokane County and also listed the cities of Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma, Everett and Yakima, but it did not name Spokane.

The “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens” executive order required the formation of a list of states and cities that Trump wrote were obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

“Sanctuary jurisdictions including cities, counties, and states that are deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws endangering American communities,” the order reads. “Sanctuary cities protect dangerous criminal aliens from facing consequences and put law enforcement in peril.”

However, the order does not take the next step and say that Trump intends to withhold federal funding from those places, like he tried earlier this year with San Francisco, Santa Clara County, and 14 other cities and counties it deems “sanctuary jurisdictions.”

“This is an eye-roller, a head-scratcher, but it doesn’t come to me as a surprise at all,” said Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, who is chair of the state House Appropriations Committee. Trump’s “whole interest is to have jurisdictions bend the knee to whatever fleeting rant he happens to be in.”

Spokane County Commissioner Al French said he believes Spokane County made the list solely because of state law and insisted it is not a sanctuary county.

He said the commission will meet with legal experts Monday to consider how to proceed while being mindful of the executive order.

“It’s concerning, because the executive order could jeopardize our funding from the feds,” French said. “And not by anything we did, but by association.”

Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said only that city officials continue to follow all applicable laws but did not directly address the executive order.

Rep. Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, pointed to the situation in Adams County, which Washington Attorney General Nick Brown sued earlier this year and accused officials there of cooperating with immigration enforcement in violation of the Keep Washington Working Act, which lawmakers passed in 2019.

That law protects the rights of immigrant communities from unnecessary contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As a result of the law, local police departments and sheriff’s offices aren’t supposed to share information with ICE or U.S. Border Patrol agents upon request, Aaron Korthuis, a staff attorney at Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, told The Spokesman-Review in March.

Korthuis said the law also prohibits local officials from transferring individuals in custody to federal authorities or detaining individuals based solely on their immigration status, or to ask about a person’s immigration status.

Based on that law, Brown filed suit in Spokane County Superior Court in March alleging that Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner held persons in custody based on their immigration status, gave federal agents confidential information and helped those agents question detainees in violation of the 2019 law.

Following the filing of the lawsuit, Wagner said in a statement at the time that it was a “disappointing attempt to hinder our ability to uphold public safety.”

Schmick, of Colfax, and State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, both sided with Wagner, when contacted Friday about the executive order.

“I believe that we need to follow the federal law … especially when people are in jail and ICE is looking for them,” Schmick said. “They should be turned over to ICE so they can be deported. We do not want criminals on our streets.”

Asked if he feared that Trump may try to withhold federal funding to Washington, Schmick said local officials “better change the rules. I thought when they passed (Keep Washington Working) way back when, that we were setting ourselves up for problems.

“Now we are the problem.”

Schoesler noted that states changed speed limits and drinking ages in the past based on threats from federal officials to withhold transportation funds.

“If you look at the people being protected by sanctuary cities, they are some pretty bad people. I live in Adams County. They are not grabbing people from the fields and factories,” Schoesler said. “We are talking about people who committed crimes.

“Sheriff Wagner wants to follow the federal law. If you are a criminal and not here legally, he wants to cooperate. At this point, we’d do better if Nick Brown tried working with these people instead of having a lawsuit every week.”

Mike Faulk, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said Trump’s executive order “is merely a list, and one that appears to be riddled with errors and false claims,” he wrote. “Our bottom line, based on the facts, is that Keep Washington Working does not interfere with federal immigration law.”

Ormsby, the lawmaker from Spokane, called the executive order just the latest in a litany of proclamations and assertions coming from Trump.

“It changes regularly, daily and hourly,” Ormsby said. “My reaction is I’m very pleased that we have an attorney general in Washington state who is actively participating in lawsuits to stop some of this silliness that is coming out.

“This is just the latest in a long list of gobsmacking things that have come out of this administration,” he continued. “While it’s difficult to take it super seriously, because it’s in the early stages and will have to go through a legal review, I don’t think it’s an immediate issue for us.”

Spokesman-Review reporters Nick Gibson and Emry Dinman contributed to this report.