With President-elect Donald Trump promising to be tougher on immigration and deport criminal immigrants, mayors and police chiefs from the cities of Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace will be meeting soon to discuss community concerns about how Trump’s stance could impact local police agencies’ approach immigration enforcement.
The meeting is being organized by Lynnwood Mayor Nicola Smith, and stemmed from a phone call that Lynnwood Communications and Public Affairs Manager Julie Moore received last week from a teacher at Alderwood Middle School. “She stated that her students were so scared about what was to happen to their family and their friends that they weren’t able to focus on school, and she wanted to know what the city was going to do,” Moore said.
As a result of that call, Smith began talking with Edmonds School District Superintendent Kris McDuffy and Edmonds Community College President Jean Hernandez about the issue. The Lynnwood mayor extended her outreach further, and “is now working to organize all of the South County mayors together, asking them to bring their police chiefs, so that we can have a comprehensive South County discussion,” Moore said.
“Mayor Smith feels that it is vital that we all come together and have a thoughtful approach to address the community uncertainty and concern,” Moore added. The hope is to schedule the meeting in early December, and ways to involve the community are currently being discussed, she said.
Meanwhile, police chiefs from both Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace said they don’t have any plans to shift their cities’ stance on immigration enforcement in light of Trump’s remarks.
“We are not planning to change how we do business because of an election,” said Edmonds Police Chief Al Compaan. “That’s how we are going to be a long as I’m here.”
“We’ve never sought out people because of their race, religion or ethnicity and we’re not going to start now,” Compaan added.
Mountlake Terrace Police Chief Greg Wilson said that his officers “do not engage in law enforcement activities solely based on someone’s immigration status. Our job is to work with our community to address local law enforcement concerns; not immigration and customs enforcement.”
“The mission of the Mountlake Terrace Police Department is to serve our community with professionalism and integrity, support the Constitution, laws and core values as set forth by our citizens, and defend the individual rights, human dignity and quality of life for all who live, visit and work within Mountlake Terrace. I have no intention of changing the way we serve our citizens,” Wilson added.
— By Teresa Wippel
I applaud Mayor Smith’s effort to bring together the mayors and police chiefs. My hope is that this leads to our mayors and city councils passing a resolution that declares that our cities are a refuge of justice and opportunity for people of all walks, talks, ages and aspirations – regardless of how you look, where you live, what language you speak, or who you love.
I would like to remind everyone that it is President “Elected By The People” Trump. He won because people (the majority) want a change. The police are hired to FOLLOW the laws of the nation. I question the kids are so scared. Are these kids illegal? We didn’t hear much in the report. Is it believable? Who reported it? Are they biased? I think it’s too EARLY to talk about what President Trump is planning. I think the article was written poorly and bias.
Actually, President-elect Trump did not win the popular vote, but carried the Electoral College – a majority of around two million Americans – “The People” – voted the other way. Be that as it may, Mr. Trump has made it clear over and over what he plans to do and we are seeing daily the sort of people he is appointing, also a good indicator of his plans. Many are frightened; that fright may or may not be warranted, but it is real: it is a mistake to dismiss other people’s fears because one does not share them. I think the article was timely, perfectly well written, and not biased: it simply reported what has been said and is planned – the function of a good newspaper.
It’s still not proven who got the popular vote..regardless he is the new President under the constitutional rules. Ps this would not be the first time a president did not win the popular but became a president and probably won’t be the last. He is the president so you must move on. I stand by my first reply, article needed to include all the facts not guesses, why have a meeting if president Trump does nothing with illegals? Wait until you know and stop basing thoughts on fears. Were they talking about illegals? Who knows? Also they are finding that many illegals voted and the comments are she did not win the popular vote. All that will be worked out. …
According to reports from Infowars, approximately 3 million votes were cast by illegal immigrants in this election. This information was uncovered by Greg Phillips of the VoteFraud.org organization. The group found that without illegal immigrants, Trump likely won the popular in addition to the electoral vote.
As things stand, yes, Donald Trump is the President-Elect; I will not dispute that. But Alex Jones is a conspiracy theorist, who thinks 9/11 was an inside job and that the global elite are preparing to enslave the masses. His report states that “3 million votes in presidential election [were] cast by illegal aliens.” The statement has been repeated on Facebook over 48,000 times. – But the report is actually a tweet and the person who authored it refuses to explain how he derived the information. Independent experts suggest that the figure is highly suspect.
PunditFact(https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/nov/18/blog-posting/no-3-million-undocumented-immigrants-did-not-vote-/) states that “As evidence of its claim, InfoWars’ headline refers to a report from VoteFraud.org and tweets from Gregg Phillips, whose Twitter profile says he’s the founder of VoteStand, a voter fraud reporting app. There is no report from VoteFraud.org, however, and Phillips told PolitiFact he is not affiliated with that website. The information comes from tweets made by from Phillips on Nov. 11 and Nov. 13.
“Phillips would not provide any additional information when asked by PolitiFact. He said he has chosen not to release more information because he is still working on analyzing the data and verifying its accuracy. Phillips would also not say what the data is or where it came from, or what methodology he used.
“According to his page on LinkedIn, Phillips is a former finance director of the Alabama Republican Party. He also served as executive director of the Mississippi Republican Party and was managing director of a super PAC that supported Newt Gingrich’s 2012 campaign for president.”
On the other hand, NBC reports that “As additional votes have been counted in the presidential election, especially on the West Coast, Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote lead over Donald Trump now exceeds 2 million votes, according to an ongoing tally by the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman.” This, while CNN adds: “Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is now nearing 2 million votes, approaching the milestone as the campaign begins to hear from scientists who want to see a recount in several states.”
As to fears – those to those who fear, that fear is very real, and I would add that the fears are not confined to illegal aliens, and nothing that Mr. Trump has said gives much reason not to fear very much for our country, and for our environment.
We would have more to fear from #CrookedHillary …and I voted just like our mayor!
Respectfully, I do wish we could all refrain from name-calling. The election is over, unless some of the possible recounts turn something up. In the mean time, let’s avoid “Crooked Hillary” and “Drumpf” and “Libtards” and “”Deplorables” – terms which do not inform, and only inflame emotions and do nothing to help us live with our neighbors and our differences.