Immigration officials have been forced to stop sharing all pertinent details on pending raids in and around Seattle and Spokane due to media leaks.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Seattle Field Office Director Cammilla Wamsley explained to “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH that her office alerts local law enforcement agencies when her agents are targeting criminal illegal immigrants. The coordination is intended to cut down on surprises or any “blue on blue shooting.”

But she said it’s been a challenge in Seattle and Spokane.

“We do have some situations with some local police agencies in which we struggle with that notification because it is leaked to the media as soon as we make those notifications,” Wamsley explained. “And that endangers my workforce. It causes issues with the public. We’re trying to work through those concerns with our partners.”

ICE Seattle says leaks by Seattle law enforcement are deliberate

ICE Seattle believes the leaks are intentional, meant to interfere with enforcement efforts. But as a direct result of the apparent leaks, Wamsley said ICE Seattle stopped fully coordinating with local enforcement in certain cities.

“In some instances, we’re delaying that notification until right around the time we’re out in the field so that there’s little to not lead time for our locations to be leaked,” she explained. “We’re also not necessarily sharing exactly where we are, but more, where we are in relation to neighborhoods or more generalized areas. It’s tough and it’s a bit demoralizing for our officers who are deeply committed to the mission.”

Wamsley said ICE Seattle has much better relationships with agencies outside of Seattle and Spokane. Law enforcement agencies in central Washington are especially helpful when they can legally do so.

Paying a price for leaks

Keep Washington Working Act, the state’s dubiously titled sanctuary law, prevents most cooperation between law enforcement and ICE.

“I can tell you that the sheriff and the local organizations are following the state law, even if they don’t want to,” Wamsley said.

The Seattle Police Department said the same thing: the department will not violate the Keep Washington Working Act to cooperate with federal investigations around illegal immigrants. Policy bars cooperation without approval from the Chief of Police or a designee. How often is approval given? Never.

As a result of the lack of cooperation, ICE Seattle said it is forced to make arrests in neighborhoods or at businesses, where it’s less safe to conduct raids. If local agencies cooperated when they seek to arrest criminal illegal immigrants, the likelihood of more public raids is greatly “diminished.”

If it’s determined that any city official or law enforcement staffer is breaking the law with their leaks, Wamsley believes there will be legal consequences.

ICE Seattle is targeting criminal illegal immigrants

Wamsley also noted that ICE Seattle arrests are targeted.

“I think there is a general idea that the public has that we are willy-nilly, if you will, targeting, not targeting people; that we’re just making arrests of folks on the streets without having background on what their history is, both immigration and criminality, which is inaccurate,” she explained. “We do engage in targeted enforcement operations in which we are identifying people who are in the United States in violation of immigration laws, and who generally also have some criminality in their background, which could be as simple as a simple assault or as complex as a murder conviction.”

ICE Seattle announced last week that agents arrested Doung Duc Nguyen, a citizen of Vietnam. He was previously convicted in Washington for rape, kidnapping, indecent liberties, burglary, and felony harassment. He had been previously ordered removed by an immigration judge in 2022.

And despite the riots in Los Angeles and increased local pressure to stop enforcing immigration laws, ICE Seattle will continue.

“I understand that people maybe don’t agree with the platform of the president or of this administration, but we have a job to do, and it’s been the same job that we’ve been doing since 1954, and we’re not going to stop doing that,” Wamsley explained.

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