Sanctuary laws are illegal

Your Sept. 3 editorial praised Governor Ferguson for his response to the notice from Attorney General Pam Bondi that the state of Washington treads on thin ice by advancing its status as a sanctuary state. (Governor’s reasoned defiance to Bondi’s ICE demands). You quoted (twice) the Governor to say, “we will not be bullied…by legally baseless accusations.” Ferguson, a lawyer, is wrong and your praise is misplaced.

The U.S Constitution states that all federal laws “shall be the supreme Law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” The Washington State Constitution also says, “[T]he Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land.”

Two of many relevant provisions of federal law are implicated by these events. First, U. S. immigration law has exclusive and plenary jurisdiction over immigration. When Arizona attempted to address immigration with its own law, the Supreme Court declared its laws were an unconstitutional infringement on federal authority. I worked in the immigration court and the system worked. At least it did before the Biden Administration opened the border, ceased to follow the law, and released millions of immigrants into the country. By then the system was overwhelmed, which seemed to be the intent.

Second, U.S. law, 8 U.S.C. §1423, makes it a felony crime to knowingly or recklessly conceal, harbor, or shield undocumented immigrants from detection or to engage in any act that substantially facilitates their ability to remain in the U.S. illegally. It is illegal to obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law. Knowingly holding an undocumented immigrant in county jail is harboring. Refusing to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) they are about to release such a person into the community substantially facilitates their ability to remain in the U.S illegally.

The primary bone of contention is the state law, the Keep Washington Working Act, prohibits notice to immigration authorities that the county has arrested and detained an illegal immigrant so that ICE agents might pick them up as they are released from the county jail. In March 2025, Washington Attorney General Nick Brown filed suit against Adams County and its sheriff for violating the state’s Keep Washington Working Act, a sanctuary law that limits local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The Adams County sheriff notified ICE when they had an undocumented immigration in their custody, which is what federal law required of him.

That is why ICE agents look in Home Depot parking lots and at employers who hire undocumented immigrants. If the state cooperated with the enforcement of federal law, there would be no need to flood the community with ICE agents in tactical gear.

There is another, more profound issue that The Herald and Mercer Island Reporter glossed over.

In the 1850s and before, the Southern Democrats stated their resistance to Northern attempts to outlaw slavery. The Republican party was formed in 1854 to resist the expansion of slavery into the new states, and Abraham Lincoln — he of the Emancipation Proclamation — was elected in 1860. And then Fort Sumter came under fire on April 12, 1861, marking the start of the American Civil War.

Mark Twain is credited with saying that history does not repeat itself, but it does occasionally rhyme. Democrats in 1860 resisted efforts to abolish slavery and the media of the day rallied them into civil war. Democrats today resist enforcement of duly adopted federal law governing immigration, law that is the supreme law of the nation, and our media rally the resistance, unwisely to say the least.

Michael J. Bond,

Mercer Island