The state Department of Licensing revoked Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to a data search system Wednesday after discovering the federal agency used it to get information about a Kirkland man targeted for deportation.
The use of that data for immigration enforcement, confirmed by the state after a KING 5 investigation, violated an agreement between the licensing department and ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, according to Nate Olson, a DOL spokesperson.
The revelation that state licensing data had been used for immigration enforcement took some lawmakers and immigrant advocates aback. The 2019 Keep Washington Working Act prohibits most state agencies from cooperating with immigration enforcement.
Great to hear, except
after discovering the federal agency used it
Everyone really should have been proactive about this in January and cut off all federal law enforcement agencies access to their systems. The fact that we’re still playing catch up with these fascist bastards at this point is really dire.
It’s worse than that, they shouldn’t have had access at all.
Damn, I see what you’re saying now, the headline really buried the lede on this
The use of that data for immigration enforcement, confirmed by the state after a KING 5 investigation, violated an agreement between the licensing department and ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, according to Nate Olson, a DOL spokesperson.
The revelation that state licensing data had been used for immigration enforcement took some lawmakers and immigrant advocates aback. The 2019 Keep Washington Working Act prohibits most state agencies from cooperating with immigration enforcement.
Can’t wait to see absolutely nobody go to prison for this
Someone needs to be fired for violating security protocols.
Pre-Trump HSI wasn’t an immigration enforcement agency. They did real work like international trafficking. So if they were on mission they wouldn’t have any reason to use the data for immigration.
ICE has been a fucking vile organization since it was started in the aftermath of 9/11. HSI I don’t know as much about (Wikipedia just told me it was founded in the 1700s and worked to shut down sweatshops that used child labor in the early 1900s, so they do seem like they were kinda cool once upon a time), but it seems like they’ve been underneath ICE since it’s founding, so I find it hard to believe there are still any decent human beings left there unfortunately.
Either way, there was supposed to be a law on the books since 2019 saying nobody under ICE was able to access these records, so whether or not HSI does any good work is irrelevant, they need to be held accountable for breaking the law.
There are a significant chunk of decent agents in HSI, but they’re increasingly being tasked to immigration duty or are leaving the agency. I think it’s important to keep these people around as long as we can, because the people replacing them are much much worse.
And that’s ignoring the fact that there are a lot of human trafficking type cases that are straight up getting ignored now, which is a whole other problem. We actually do need people fighting this stuff, because it’s fucking everywhere. HSI has historically done a decent job, even falling under the ICE umbrella.
whether or not HSI does any good work is irrelevant, they need to be held accountable for breaking the law.
1000%
The 2019 law doesn’t say anyone under ICE is barred. It says they can’t cooperate with anyone trying to do immigration enforcement.
HSI is the “customs” part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
They shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place, it was illegal.
I’ll take any win we can get at this point
Great glad to see this, ICE are American gestapo
