Josh Imhof & Eliyahu Gasson & Kaitlyn Hughes | features editor & editor-in-chief & news editor

Members of Pittsburgh City Council introduced a bill on Tuesday that would prevent the city from cooperating with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The proposed bill comes as the city continues to decide how to navigate interactions with ICE and just 13 days after Allegheny County Council approved similar legislation.

“We as a city, planting our stake in the ground, are not going to coordinate with immigration enforcement,” said Councilwoman Erika Strassburger, D-Squirrel Hill. “This version of immigration enforcement, particularly where people are being taken away and detained and disappeared with impunity and with little regard for humanity.”

Introduced by Strassburger along with Councilwoman Barbara Warwick, D-Greenfield, and Deb Gross, D-Highland Park, the bill would prohibit the request of immigration status by city employees, prevent investigations based on a person’s citizenship or immigration status, ban city employees from providing ICE access to a person in city custody and designate certain properties within the city as “Safe Community Places.”

These Safe Community Places would be private entities of facilities that federal immigration officers would be barred from entering. In addition to this, the legislation would establish that city-owned or controlled property would not be used to stage, conduct or assist with federal immigration enforcement activities.

ICE agents in Pittsburgh and across the country have made arrests as people leave courtrooms, something the council members hope to eliminate.

“The fact that ICE is wanting to intervene on that and take that due process away from people is not something that we want to participate in here in Pittsburgh,” Warwick said.

When asked how these potential laws will be enforced, Gross said discussions are ongoing.

“We have citizens who are upset because they’ve seen our city police, what they believe they’ve seen is collaboration. We also have concerns from other citizens that they have seen a lack of collaboration when there’s someone in distress, when it was an ICE agent in distress,” Gross said. “I don’t know that we know right now exactly where we’re going to draw that line.”

Last week, Pittsburgh police Chief Jason Lando ordered a review of officers’ police body camera footage after he said it has been alleged that they were ordered not to intervene.

“To refuse help in an emergency would create both a legal and ethical dilemma for our police officers,” Lando said in a statement. “Specifically as it relates to assisting ICE, PBP officers have been instructed to respond to emergency calls for back-up, assist in rendering the scene safe, then return to service.”

The chief went on to say that he was not aware of any order given to forbid Pittsburgh police officers from intervening.

This investigation happens as body cam footage from a separate incident on Dec. 17 involving Pittsburgh police and ICE on Mount Washington has circulated on social media after being shared by the Steel City Anti-Fascist League on Instagram.

According to the account, the footage was obtained through a Pennsylvania Right to Know Request.

The footage depicts Pittsburgh police officers entering the car of the person detained by ICE and putting it into park, accepting a request by an ICE agent to keep an eye on a door, referring to bystanders as “internet journalists” recording the incident and helping an ICE officer locate a cell phone.

The Dec. 17 footage also shows a police officer mocking concerned residents by saying “They’re stealing our neighbors,” to which another replies “Then what’s his name, bro.”

A city officer in the footage asked an ICE agent if they wanted help detaining someone. The ICE agent denied the request.

When approached by a resident, police officers responded by saying that it was not their operation.

Lando did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Public information officers did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Strassburger, Warwick and Gross were not aware of an investigation into the incident.

Jaime Martinez, founder of Frontline DIGNITY, told The Duke that he thinks a thorough investigation by Lando is called for to determine the extent to which city police assisted ICE agents. Regardless, he said, the released body cam footage helps explain why there is distrust between immigrant communities and police in Pittsburgh.

“I hope they would recognize that they should protect their community and not these agents who are coming in to terrify the rest of us,” he said. “We need to be seeing people do better, especially law enforcement. And I think it points out the need for us to have codified clarifications of what law enforcement can and cannot do.”

Beth Pittinger, executive director of the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board, said they are aware of the footage and they have an “open investigation into the incident.”

Molly Onufer, a spokeswoman for Mayor Corey O’Connor, said that the mayor’s office does not have an official statement. O’Connor has stated on multiple occasions that Pittsburgh will not cooperate with ICE.

Members of Global Switchboard, a human rights nonprofit based in Pittsburgh, were in City Council chambers Tuesday to advocate for the legislative package.

“They’re [ICE] not giving people due process, and I’m really proud of the city for starting to take steps toward protecting people’s constitutional rights in the city,” said Holly Hickling, executive director of Global Switchboard.

A news release about the legislation published on Monday said the bills were “crafted in collaboration with local and statewide immigration advocacy organizations such as Global Switchboard and Frontline DIGNITY.

“We were able to show them early drafts, and they were also able to help work with some attorneys from the ACLU,” Gross said.

The legislation was modeled after other cities, including Philadelphia, which introduced similar “ICE Out” legislation in January.

“We always try to do our homework and figure out what other cities [have done], how they’ve written their legislation, whether it applies to the structure of our state constitution and our local home rule charter and things like that,” Gross said. “We’re trying to protect everybody’s rights, regardless of your immigration status, including our own citizens who may be exercising their own right to access the streets, to use their phones, to travel through their day and to access our public facilities.”

Warwick said that despite fears of putting unwanted federal attention on Pittsburgh with this legislation, it is something that is needed within the city.

“I think that we’re beyond just sort of worrying about keeping our heads down. This is here. This is happening.” Warwick said. “And no matter what kind of chaos the federal government wants to stir up here in our cities, no matter what kind of scapegoating they want to do to our immigrant communities, we know here in Pittsburgh that we need to draw a line in the sand.”

Josh Imhof can be reached at imhofj@duq.edu

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu

Kaitlyn Hughes can be reached at hughesk10@duq.edu