Blaine, Wa. — In what local newspapers are dubbing his “latest salvo against the Trump administration,” Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee, D, announced and issued an executive order Thursday that makes it harder for state agencies and law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
“This executive order makes clear that Washington will not be a willing participant in promoting or carrying out mean-spirited policies that break up families and compromise our national security and, importantly, our community safety,” Inslee said in his weekly press conference.
Both Inslee and his General Counsel Nick Brown soft-pedaled some of the more radical implications of this action, but neither tried particularly hard to hide that the Evergreen State is becoming ground zero for resistance to President Trump’s policies.
The federal judge who halted President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning travel to the U.S. from 7 majority-Muslim countries was out of Seattle. Much hay has been made because Immigration and Customs Enforcement nabbed a now adult “Dreamer” in Washington as part of one of their stings and sought to deport him because of an alleged gang affiliation.
On the same day as Inslee’s own reverse-Trump executive order, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson vowed to fight the federal government on the issue of marijuana, legal here but still illegal at the federal level. And at the press conference, General Counsel Brown sported a Rebel Alliance pin from Star Wars memorabilia.
Brown said that the executive order “doesn’t dramatically change existing state policies but it does bring some clarity around those issues.” And Inslee showed minimal deference to federal law by stating, “If there is a federal criminal arrest warrant, we will honor it.”
That concession was likely in response to criticism the governor received over the handling of a case involving a state trooper who was placed on administrative review. The police officer called ICE after he found a man wanted on a felony arrest warrant as part of a collision on I-5. ICE agents came to the scene of the accident and took the man into custody.
Rep. J.T. Wilcox, floor leader of the state House Republicans, told the Washington Examiner in a statement Thursday, “I think the Governor, the Attorney General and [King County Executive] Dow Constantine are locked in a destructive contest of trying to get to the left of [socialist Seattle City Councilwoman] Kshama Sawant.”
Yet the adamant opposition to Trump by Inslee is nothing new. Last June, the governor called candidate Trump a “clear and present danger to our state,” and he appears to have meant that quite literally.
As to how far the governor and other leaders and members of his party are willing to take this, opinion is divided. Some, like Rep. Wilcox think the local Democrats will continue to stick it to the president and his policies at every turn.
Others aren’t so sure. Local businessman Jack Hair predicted to the Examiner, “It’s going to be very interesting to see Jay [Inslee] backpedal when Federal funds are held back as a ‘Sanctuary’ monetary movement to protect those dollars from dispersion by the State of Washington.”
