We are going to go ahead and call this uh hearing to order.

Tonight we are here to examine serious concerns regarding the overreach of U.S.

immigration and customs enforcement, commonly known as ICE, and to consider legislation that protects the safety, constitutional rights, and dignity of every person who calls Columbus home.

I want to begin by thanking all of my colleagues for being here tonight, our community partners, advocates, and residents.

I wish that folks online could see that we have an open house today.

I feel like it's a little bit of a family reunion because all of you have been partners in this work for so long.

I want to thank all of our residents who, whether you took the time to send in written testimony or you're here with us this evening to participate in this important hearing tonight.

Your presence here reflects the seriousness of this moment.

I believe deeply that local government has a responsibility to ensure that every person in our community feels safe, respected, and protected under the law.

Local resources exist to serve local residents, not to advance unchecked federal enforcement actions.

We cannot ignore federal law or federal policy, but we can decide how our city interacts with it.

We can determine how our resources are used to address local priorities, such as public health, housing stability, and public safety.

And we know that safety does not come from fear.

It does not come from confusion about who has authority.

And it certainly does not come from practices that erode trust between residents and the very institutions meant to serve them.

In fact, the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution limits the federal government's ability to commandeer local resources.

The Constitution applies to everyone, to everyone within our borders.

No agency, federal, state, or local, is above the Constitution.

Due process is not optional.

Civil rights are not conditional.

When enforcement practices appear to exceed lawful authority or undermine basic protections, it is our obligation to respond.

In our community and communities across the country like ours, we have heard troubling reports of ICE enforcement actions that go beyond reasonable boundaries, actions that create fear in schools, workplaces, houses of worship, and neighborhoods.

When residents are afraid to report crimes, seek medical care, or cooperate with local law enforcement because they fear immigration consequences.

All of us are less safe regardless of your immigration status.

Tonight's conversation will be grounded in facts and respect.

We welcome a range of perspectives.

Clear boundaries between federal immigration enforcement and our community are not obstruction.

They are acts of governance.

The legislation before us is rooted in the safety of our people and communities through the protection of public spaces, setting clear standards and protocols, and limiting unauthorized cooperation.

I am proud of the resilience and diversity of our community.

Immigrants, documented and undocumented, are our neighbors, business owners, students, parents, and essential workers.

They contribute to our economy, our culture, and our shared future.

Their dignity and their rights are not abstract principles.

They are lived realities in our neighborhoods every day.

Our responsibility tonight is to listen carefully, legislate thoughtfully, and to act lawfully.

And tonight we begin that work together.

Thank you all for being here.

I want to pass the floor to Council President for opening remarks.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair.

I um grateful for everyone for being here.

This is when ICE uh enforcement increased in Columbus.

Uh, I said many will say that uh this is who we are, that we are a town that would be okay with it.

And I said no, the response to this is who Columbus is.

And looking out on this uh crowd today, seeing the testimonies that we've already received, it speaks to who we are as a city.

So I am very, very grateful from the bottom of our hearts for the work that you do that Councilmember uh talked about.

I certainly want to thank uh Councilmember Rosa de Padilla uh and President Pro Tim Dorrans for your leadership uh on this legislative package.

Uh it has been thoughtful, it has been open, and it has been heartfelt uh and proud to be uh here as well.

I also want to thank our residents and the advocates and educators and faith leaders, business owners, and community partners who have taken the time to show up and engage in this conversation.

Know that your presence matters, know that your voice matters.

Yes, we are here today to talk about protecting our community from aggressive immigration enforcement practices.

But I also want to be clear that this conversation is about more than just immigration policy.

This is about who we are as a city, our humanity.

It's about economic development, because cities thrive when people feel safe going to work, opening businesses, and investing their future.

Fear does not grow small businesses.

Fear does not attract talent, and fear does not build a strong local economy.

It's also about safety because a city is less safe when parents are afraid to drive their children to school, when workers are hesitant to report crimes, and when neighbors avoid interacting with public institutions that are meant to serve them.

Know that it's about travel and tourism, because cities known for compassion, stability, and trust are places people want to visit, to learn in, and to return to.

Know that it's about education and child care and pre-K, because no parent or family should fear taking their child to school or to daycare.

And at its core, it's about our shared humanity.

Aggressive enforcement tactics do not happen in a vacuum.

They ripple out into our schools, our hospitals, our workplaces, our churches, and our neighborhoods.

When members of our community are treated as disposable or under uh undeserving of dignity, it weakens the moral fabric that holds all of us together.

And we must be honest about that.

This hearing is about protecting our neighbors when federal enforcement crosses the line.

Cities have both the right and the responsibility to say how something is done matters just as much as what is done.

In my faith tradition, we are reminded in that every person is created in the image of God, that truth places dignity not on paperwork, not on status, not on where someone was born, but on their humanity.

I was thinking about this today as we honor an important ancestor in our community who passed away yesterday.

To echo the poem of Reverend Jesse Jackson who reminded us again and again, I am somebody.

I am God's child.

Those words aren't just poetic.

They set a moral standard, reminding us that dignity isn't granted by policy or paperwork.

When we fail to honor that, when families are living in fear, when workers are targeted, when children are scared, we are not just failing a single group.

We're failing ourselves.

So today's hearing is about listening.

It's about accountability, it's about understanding the real world impacts of aggressive enforcement on our city's safety, on our city's economy, and our city's future.

And it's about affirming clearly and unapologetically that Columbus will always strive to lead with dignity, fairness, and our humanity.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for sharing your voices.

Thank you for standing up for your neighbors.

It's now my honor to turn the floor over to uh our leader, uh, our co-leaders on this, uh, Press Pro Tim, Rob Dorns.

Uh thank you, Council President.

Uh good evening, uh everyone.

I appreciate folks who have taken time out of the day to be here with us here tonight.

Uh, also want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Barroso De Padilla, who um, if you ever wondered what representation matters, it matters in a moment like this for to have a colleague that has spent most of her adult life organizing in the immigrant refugee community and being here today to bring that uh advocacy to bear in a moment like this is something that cannot be replaced that is so incredibly important uh to this body, to me personally, to have someone to rely upon in moments like this, um, to think about policy that is within our control uh in order to be able to make a meaningful change in our community to protect people.

So thank you.

Um here tonight we're gonna hear from a variety of different folks uh across the city.

The partnership that we've talked about here at council could not be achieved without our folks within our legislative research office, um, folks within the division of police, within the Department of Public Safety, building zoning services, so many folks across administration that has contributed along the city attorney's office uh to be able to really identify key areas that we believe that this council, this city can take meaningful steps forward to protect our residents from chaos.

And I mean that.

We've seen across the country where this immigration enforcement has led to chaos on the streets, has led chaos into families.

While we can't control all this, what we can do as a community is do our best to protect one another in a moment like this.

Uh that's why it's so important for a discussion like this to consider legislation that does our best to address what the city can control.

We'll also acknowledge things outside of our control and make sure that we are empowering residents to be smart, uh, to be thoughtful about how they're interacting with their family, their neighbors, and ultimately folks that they may interact with on the street.

Um I want to thank again our folks across council from the staff standpoint that have helped really bring us to this place here tonight to be able to really review this legislation for the first time publicly and bring before council for a vote in the coming week.

Uh so with that, uh want to pause and see if my any of my council colleagues have anything that they'd like to add this time.

Seeing none, I will turn it back over to my colleague.

Uh thank you, Pro Tem.

I also just want to thank um both of you and and our council for your uh partnership in this and your leadership in making this happen.

I think when we started to understand, I mean, we saw Haitian TPS at risk, and then there was this day we know that Somali TPS is going to be up uh in March.

We knew that we needed to act fast.

I mean, I would argue that we're already behind.

And so the the measures that we are taking today are what is within our control.

I want to thank all of you who again have been partners in this work, all of you who do this work, live this work.

I mean, when I look out in this chamber today, what I see is Columbus.

This is Columbus, and the fact that we are standing up for each other, that we are a community that says we are going to stand united for each other's humanity means a lot.

Um that's all I'm gonna say.

I was gonna tell a personal story, but I'm not gonna do that because you already know.

Okay, so here's how tonight is going to work.

So we are going to hear a series of presentations.

First, we're going to hear from the Ohio Immigrate Alliance Immigrant Alliance.

We're going to hear from the Columbus Division of Police.

We're going to hear from the Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, and then we're going to head into they're essentially going to give us the case of why, what are our policies and procedures?

What is it that we currently do?

What can folks expect?

We're going to ask some questions.

The floor is open to all of my colleagues to ask questions along the way because this is a meaty uh hearing.

And so we're not going to wait till questions till the end, because we'll all forget the questions that we had.

So then we're going to kick it over to our legislative research office, who will present the different pieces of legislation that we are proposing.

And then from there, we will move to public testimony.

We have a whopping, I believe 20 21 uh piece uh folks from the community who want to speak and we want to make sure that we give them all their due.

How public testimony will work is that we will announce the person who is up and the person who is on deck.

Just as a reminder, you have three minutes.

Please stick to those three minutes so that everyone gets the opportunity to get to be heard when you come up to the podium.

So if you need to make some adjustments, you got some time.

Um, and with that, I am excited to introduce our first presentation from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance.

It's the executive director, Lynn Tremont or Tremante.

Lynn Talmante.

I mispronounce your name.

And Lynn is joining us virtually.

So Lynn, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council President Harden and members of the council.

My name is Lynn Tremonty.

I serve as executive director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance.

OIA is a coalition of immigrants and allies working around the state to defend the dignity and rights of all who call Ohio home.

The grassroots organizing, volunteerism, and community partnerships.

We connect communities across Ohio to strengthen our collective voice and build a more just and inclusive future.

We coordinate a statewide network of organizations and leaders to protect immigrants' rights.

We monitor conditions and immigration jails, and we operate the Ohio Immigrant Hotline, where individuals can report abuses or seek assistance.

This means the information that I'm bringing forward today is grounded not only in data, but in the realities people are living in Ohio right now.

This is our home.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about how immigration arrests and detention are operating in Ohio and how local jurisdictions are participating in mass deportation.

The information I'm presenting today is a subset from a forthcoming analysis of immigration and customs enforcement arrests, detentions, and deportations across Ohio during the first year of the second Trump administration.

We will publish our complete analysis this spring.

It offers answers to long-standing gaps and publicly accessible person level data to bring transparency.

So we're grateful to preview the data here.

As you know, Ohio Counties counties play a significant role in the civil immigration jail network.

These are not people being accused of crimes.

These are people who may have civil immigration cases pending.

Our research shines a light into how immigration jail functions in the state.

And I really want us to understand what we're talking about.

Immigrants can be detained in a criminal jail while their civil cases are pending.

They are not being accused of crimes while they are in these jails.

And in most cases, their detention is not mandatory.

It's at the discretion of the federal government, which is why immigration jail numbers have skyrocketed during the Trump administration.

They are using detention as a weapon.

The purpose of immigration jail is supposed to be to protect the public, but our analysis shows that the people we are detaining in Ohio pose no threat to anybody.

The Trump administration's policy goal is actually to disadvantage immigrants with cases so that it's harder for them to obtain legal counsel or build a defense to their deportation.

Rather than facing indefinite detention in a jail, possibly for years, many Columbus residents are agreeing to give up on their cases so that they can get their liberty back.

This includes people who have paths to legal status through laws written by Congress.

It is a thumb on the scale in a system that is already unfair.

I'm going to share a couple slides.

Hopefully I'm going to be able to do a good job at that.

I'm not the most tech savvy person.

Okay.

So mass deportation cannot happen without the participation of municipalities and counties who profit off of the arrest and detention of people who, again, are not being charged with crimes.

These are civil cases, not criminal.

It's turning pain into profit.

The Butler County Jail makes at least 105 dollars per day or more for each person it incarcerates for ICE.

The jail is planning to bring in 11 million dollars in revenue for 2025 and maybe even 22 million in 2026.

Butler County is in southwestern Ohio, but it's relevant to Columbus because that is where most central Ohioans are being sent after they are arrested by ICE.

We did an analysis during Operation Buckeye, the Trump administration's onslaught against Columbus residents just before the Christmas holiday.

And we found that 50% of the people arrested by ICE in central Ohio were sent to the Butler County jail.

Between February and mid-October in 2025, this jail accounted for more than one-third of all detentions across all six facilities in Ohio.

So as you can see, local participation and federal immigration force enforcement is central to mass deportation.

It provides the bones of the system.

It also means that local officials have the power to not participate in a policy that's destroying families and communities.

Since the beginning of President Trump's second term, 4,568 people have been detained in Ohio on civil charges, civil immigration charges.

Of these, 1,391 have active immigration cases, and 2,956 received final deportation orders from an immigration court.

3,924 people were Hispanic, and 4,130 are men.

Only 1,200 even had a most serious conviction charge listed on their record, meaning that they have some sort of a criminal history, which can include a traffic offense.

Of those, only 255 had a charge that would be classified as violent under the NCIC offense codes 0901 through 1399, 1601, 2099, 3612, 5214, and 5215.

So this means that the overwhelming majority of people in immigration jail in Ohio do not have criminal histories, much less violent histories.

Here we're looking at the combined length of stay, and again, looking at people that had any sort of criminal history or not.

Not only are individuals without a criminal history being arrested at the highest rate, but they're spending more time in detention compared to people who actually do have criminal convictions.

The median length of stay for people without a criminal history was 29 days, while individuals with a nonviolent criminal charge spent 21 days in immigration jail, and individuals with a violent conviction on their record spent 25 days before they were deported.

So the average individual detained in Ohio on civil immigration charges is a 35-year-old single man from Mexico with no criminal history, who was deported after spending 27 days in immigration jail at our expense across two separate facilities in different parts of the United States.

But averages cannot capture the range of experiences.

One of the most extreme cases we found was a 23-year-old man from Vietnam who was initially detained in Eloy, Arizona.

Over 324 days.

He was transferred to Butler County Jail in Ohio, Monroe County Inmate Dormitory in Michigan, Adams County Correctional Center in Mississippi, and Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas.

His only charge was entering the United States without a visa.

He has no criminal record.

So think about this.

He was detained on November 18, 2024, received a final order of removal on September 9th, 2025, and was deported in October 2025.

All of those days we were paying for him to be in jail.

And all of that time he was away from his family.

You can read our book, Broken Hope, Deportation and the Road Home for more examples.

And most importantly, information on the experience of deportation and its aftermath.

So many Ohio families are broken by the government action of deportation.

Even when individuals concerned also qualify for legal status, for example, by meet by being married to a U.S.

citizen.

You can be eligible for legal status and deportation at the same time.

And the choice of which one the government picks is a political decision.

The Trump administration believes indiscriminate mass deportation should be the policy that they are carrying out, and they're doing it with the help of local officials.

Quickly, I'm going to provide a very quick snapshot of arrest patterns across some of the big Ohio communities.

Our report that we're releasing this spring will have full data for the entire first year of the Trump administration.

But during that time period, Cleveland had 351 immigration arrests.

And again, these are civil charges, not criminal.

Columbus had 421, plus we know an additional 280 people arrested during Operation Buckeye, which makes the total at least 701 from Columbus.

Other parts of the state, there were 2,799 arrests documented.

In each of these jurisdictions and data sets, individuals with no criminal history represent the largest share of arrests by a huge margin.

Sorry, I didn't flip through those slides quick as I was talking.

I'd also like to talk about the experience of immigration jail just for a moment.

People are being held there and they're not serving a criminal sentence.

They're waiting for a civil immigration court to render a decision on their deportability or release them.

It's actually an indefinite sentence.

And they are still subject to the same treatment as somebody incarcerated for committing a crime, deprivation of liberty, disconnection from loved ones, and legal support, substandard food, the need to pay for the simple act of making a phone call or ordering appropriate clothing, hygiene products, and edible food.

Many of the people we have heard from in immigration jail at the Ohio Immigrant Hotline have chronic health conditions, including cancer and diabetes, and are getting no treatment.

Jailers are financially disincentivized to provide health care, including expensive cancer drugs.

So they ignore immigrants' medical conditions.

We know people who are being deported in worse health than when they entered immigration jail.

People who are not getting diabetes medication and are leaving, losing their eyesight because they spent time in immigration jail.

A lot of times they had private insurance from the outside because they were working legally.

They have been here for decades.

But that insurance coverage doesn't work in immigration jail.

Healthcare is technically supposed to be paid for by the jailers or the taxpayers.

But the jailers don't want to spend a penny more than what they have to.

They cut costs and corners to the detriment of individuals' health.

Civil immigration jail is morally bankrupt.

Ohio counties and cities should protect their residents and demand that Congress pass fair immigration laws, not assist the federal government with mass deportation through mass incarceration.

And with that, I will stop sharing my screen.

And thank you so much.

Thank you, Lynn.

I mean, I I think that those that data is startling.

We we heard from folks that didn't believe that folks were getting detained, or you know, that's why I started this hearing with we want to start in fact.

And I think that gives us a basis for us to start to have this conversation so we really understand what we're talking about.

I want to open it up first to my colleagues.

Do folks have any questions for Lynn?

Yes.

Councilmember.

I recently had a conversation at a community meeting with an immigration attorney who said her client was not did not receive a proper amount of food at Butler, that they are not meeting the standards that are expected in jails in the United States for feeding inmates.

Is that true?

Or do you have any documentation?

I know it's that's true.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I know that um Butler County has not been cooperative about allowing people to inspect.

Um, it's absolutely true that people are not being felled proper, fed proper meals at Butler County jail.

They get fed twice a day.

Um the food is inedible.

It's basically animal food.

And uh Sheriff Jones thinks that's funny.

He says you're in jail.

You what are you expecting?

A five-course meal.

So again, you've got people spending $15 per meal on this a la carte hot food service just so they can get something partly edible in the jail there.

Um being detained is very expensive for families.

And that adds up to the stresses and costs, and it's exactly why the present by President Trump is putting more people in jail to make it expensive for them so that they give up on their cases and just agree to leave.

I think one of the other uh thank you, council member.

Did that answer?

Uh I think one of the other things that's also important to underscore is that these are civil cases and not criminal cases, which is, I think a misnomer that many folks have in the community is that they believe that this is a criminal case when indeed it is not, that immigration cases are civil.

And uh, you know, Lynn said it best.

This is a political decision to uh to hold people in detention centers, and especially when you're holding them in criminal uh uh in in criminal detention centers where the conditions are challenging, where we are um not taking care of them.

And I think the the conversation about Butler County is another conversation for another day.

But um, thank you, Lynn, for uh painting that picture for us and for folks to have the data about what is happening here.

I want to again just make sure that folks got that data.

700 people were detained from Columbus.

700 people were detained.

That's like two of our high schools of people.

So I want that to let I want that to sink in for folks as we continue to have this conversation because I think it feels like a very abstract idea.

Like we're not actually talking about people and families and communities and how that affects all of us.

So uh, President Pro Tem, I'll hand it over to you for the next part of our presentation.

If you don't mind, I did have a question for Lynn.

So Lynn, one of the things I've seen on media reports and both in Columbus and across the country, talking about sort of the chaotic nature of some of these enforcement actions is again American citizens or other individuals that have legal status here getting swept up in all this and the disruption that happens to the that individual and their families.

I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to um what the organization has seen as far as that when we just think about again, sort of the chaotic nature that we've seen, not only here in Columbus and Ohio, but also across the country.

Yeah, I want to I'm so glad you brought that up because let's think about the civil immigration laws or civil laws are normally enforced in a courtroom and an office building and through paper back and forth.

There's mediation, there's um a coming together between the parties and a resolution.

You don't have tax law enforcers out in the community with guns looking for people they think might not have paid their taxes.

That would be uh outrageous for that to happen.

Immigration laws are civil, they should be handled in a courtroom in an office building, not out in the middle of the community.

Um we have received videos of people's cars, all of their windows being smashed out by ICE as a ruse to get them to come outside.

Um you saw the videos and you heard about the horrible car accident that ICE caused in Columbus during Operation Buckeye because they were racially profiling people driving down the street, and they saw a man who was brown and they decided to chase him at a high rate of speed.

I don't know about you all, but when I was growing up and learning how to drive, my parents told me if you see somebody chasing you in a car and it's not a marked police car, you do not pull over.

You keep driving until to the nearest police station because it could be somebody who um is pretending their law enforcement to kidnap you.

That's how ICE is acting.

They're using the criminal tactics of predators in our communities, and it makes all of us unsafe.

It's it's extremely inappropriate.

And what again, what we need is civil immigration laws enforced with cool heads in a courtroom and in an office building, not in the streets of Columbus.

Thank you.

Uh, any other questions from Council Colleagues?

Just one.

And Lynn, thank you for the overview in the report on what is happening.

Um, I wanted to ask a question around these reports that uh the federal government is purchasing warehouse space to detain folks.

Are those numbers reflected in what you have presented?

Are there concerns and fear that even if we move folks out of the criminal jail to locations that are not set up for safe and health reasons, conditions will be even worse?

So thank you for asking that.

Those detention figures are not included in our current data set because we're only talking about the capacity we have now.

Uh the Trump administration increased immigration jail capacity over 1,000 percent from the Biden administration in Ohio.

So um, and again, it's the if you build it, they will fill it.

They are looking for people to put in these jails who are just here trying to take care of their families.

There should be a different process.

There should be a way for people to remediate and to get legal status.

There should be paths to compliance in the law, like there is in any other civil enforcement scheme.

And that's where we need to take this conversation is towards what what can we do differently?

What would be humane and safe for everybody in our community?

A other questions, council members.

Seeing none um movies on, um, as we just heard, there's this community has worked so incredibly hard over the last six plus years about bringing law enforcement and the community closer together.

And not that it's ever perfect, but it is certainly something that um our leadership within the division of police and public safety have embraced and really work towards making sure that there's a far more collaborative relationship between uh our officers, uh our folks in safety, and our residents.

And we wanted to make sure that our division of police was here this evening, and our safety leadership to talk about um sort of their role in this as a city.

So I wanted uh turn it over now to assist in chief uh convez and uh deputy uh deputy uh director George speaks.

Thank you, President Hard, members of council.

Um first and foremost, let me underscore and emphasize the Columbus Division of Police is not a partnering agency under Section 287 with ICE.

Uh in stark contrast, in 2017, Mayor Ginther issued a city executive order that directs city departments not to use city resources, including police, to enforce federal immigration law or assist in immigration enforcement solely based on someone's immigration status.

Columbus will only engage with ICE or federal uh work on federal immigration matters when there is evidence of a criminal offense, or there's an additional judicial court order.

And by that I mean an arrest warrant issued by a court.

Uh the mayor's policy also states that city services will not be denied to residents based upon where they're born.

The executive order has been memorialized in our division directive 3.01, uh, which states in pertinent part sworn personnel shall not arrest or detain persons based solely on immigration status or for immigration and customs enforcement unless a warrant exists or a criminal violation was observed.

Now, given that directive, um, here is what the Columbus Division of Police does not do.

Uh we don't provide information to ICE agents for the purpose of locating a person solely for civil immigration enforcement actions.

We don't assist in the removal or transportation of people in immigration enforcement proceedings.

We don't self-deploy to any immigration enforcement related events.

We don't participate in detaining people based solely on immigration status or assist in any civil immigration enforcement actions.

We don't escort federal immigration agents to enforcement locations, and we don't close streets when there are no traffic or public safety issues.

Um as was previously stated, uh Chief Bryant, the men and women of the Division of Police have worked so hard to strengthen safety and trust within our community, and the results have been overwhelming.

It is very clear that we are seeing record drops in violent crime with the lowest homicide rate in years, and strong partnerships with our community are a big reason for that.

Uh we have seen just over and over and over again, um, we are getting more tips, more people coming forward when they witness violent crime, they feel comfortable uh working with the division of police, and we are very proud of that, and we uh anticipate continuing that moving forward.

So there are many reasons that buttress and underscore the mayor's executive order and our division policy.

In short, local police are most effective when residents trust them.

It's as simple as that.

Immigration enforcement by local law enforcement reduces cooperation, it increases legal liability, it diverts resources away from public safety priorities, priorities such as addressing violent crime, traffic enforcement, illegal drug enforcement, domestic violence, burglary, and property crimes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to see if my colleagues have any questions for safety.

Councilman Ross.

Just a couple questions.

Um, Assistant Chief Convice.

You mentioned that the division of police does not work with ICE immigration unless there is some sort of nexus to criminal activity.

Can you explain specifically what you mean by criminal activity?

Does that include low-level criminal offenses that carry with it very minor jail time, um, disciplinary, or are we talking violent crime, those types of situations?

Yeah, what when I say about our interaction with ICE, it's not we don't go out on operations with ICE.

Um, they they operate solely independent on their own.

Uh where we interface with ICE is when we have a warrant or we have somebody under arrest for a criminal violation that is taken to the jail.

That is the only time that information is passed along via the jail uh to immigration and customs enforcement.

We are not out in the street doing enforcement operations with them for any level of offense, you know, criminally.

Could that arrest warrant be for a low-level criminal offense?

Are you talking about arrest warrants for felony crimes of violence?

Yeah, it could be for any any type of arrest warrant for a criminal violation uh as is uh when it gets reported to immigration and customs enforcement.

And we never ID someone solely to determine their immigration status.

That's we don't we don't make traffic stops uh and ask for their immigration status.

We never do that.

There has to be a criminal reason for the stop.

Thank you.

Any other colleagues?

Customer Green.

Uh hi, y'all.

I I recognize you might not have um a great answer to this question, but I want I wanted to um, and I apologize if this is putting you on the spot, but I think this is something that I even I am trying to sort of wrap my mind around too, is what um what constitutes criminal activity and when we observe uh, you know, individuals who uh you know say that they are federal law enforcement uh doing engaging in active actions and activities that appears to be in violation of the law.

How are we sort of thinking through the contradiction there, the conflict there in terms of you know what is our role in enforcement?

You know, what is our role in intervention when we see somebody being assaulted by someone wearing uh customs and border patrol vest in our streets?

Yeah, thank you for that question.

So uh generally speaking, um, division of police personnel are coming into these encounters very late, and generally we are not contacted by immigration and custom enforcement for assistance.

Generally, it's going to be someone from the community calling in because they are you know blocking streets or it's it's generally a protest in response to some type of immigration and customs enforcement action.

And so our folks are going to follow you know our normal procedures for protests, they're gonna follow our normal procedures for any type of crowd management, enforce a law.

If there's a fight in the crowd, sure um they may take enforcement action, but we haven't seen that.

We've had very limited um even calls to these types of enforcement actions when uh back through even December when we we saw the the huge influx of folks coming in from ICE.

Um, but again, we're not generally present during the initial encounters of ICE in these individuals on their enforcement actions because we don't work with them, we don't respond with them.

It's a call generally later from someone in the public, and then we handle it if it's an arrestable offense or we have to break up a fight or something, we will follow our normal procedures to do so and take care of it that way.

I think to be a little bit more explicit, and I'm I'm glad that this is something that we haven't encountered yet.

I think when we're looking around the country, we can see you know what appears to be violence that is being perpetrated by uh customs and border patrol.

So at what point do we have a duty to protect the citizens of Columbus that might be being harmed by these individuals?

Is are is this a policy thing that we are thinking through, I guess, as we're preparing potential for potential scenarios where there would be a point where we would try to intervene or try to de-escalate even between those two entities and uh a constituent and uh CPB agent?

Yeah, so all of our officers, and this is uh fairly new in the last couple of years.

Um we have gone through what's called able training, active bystander for law enforcement, and that is bystander and duty to intervene uh with other officers.

Uh and that's not only just with CPD, but whoever we run into, if we see something that is is appearing that not right, uh, we tell our officers they have a duty to intervene and at least, you know, hey, hey, you know, somehow try to break that officer's concentration to say to get them to think about what they're doing uh and try to intervene.

And and you know, I trust that our officers will uh use that training.

We've already seen uses of that training uh just in the city of Columbus with our personnel, it's been uh we've seen great results from it.

So they are trained in active uh bystandership and are expected to um you know follow that train.

Um other question of council members?

Just one more.

I apologize.

Assistant chief, you went down a list of things that CPD does not do, and I presume you're reading that from CPD directives or an SOP that you have with regard to operations.

What is the accountability in the event that an officer is found to have done the things that you have listed you do not do?

Is it a we have discretion, we're not going to do it, or is it you shall not do it?

And there are accountability measures that will take place in the event that an officer is found doing that?

Yeah, for just like any of our other division directives, if somebody violates it, um in fact it says sworn personnel shall not.

Uh and so that is very explicit.

Uh it's not a should not, it is a sh you shall not do something.

Um so if we have an officer that is, let's say, making traffic stops just to determine immigration status, we would handle that um the same way we would any other rule violation, it would be investigated by internal affairs, or if it's an external citizen complaint, that would go through the Department of Inspector General.

And then the chain of command would get it.

And if it is a sustained violation, we would expect uh, you know, discipline uh to come with that.

Can you briefly explain what the community can do if they are observing this or if they think they have observed this, what who are they calling?

How can they make that complaint so that accountability is had?

Sure.

Um any citizen complaint can go to the Department of Inspector General, um, they can email DIG.gov, they can contact it's available online, they can just type in Columbus Department of Inspector General and they'll get the phone number.

Um they can show up in person to the inspector general office, um, they'll they'll take a complaint anyway.

Um, even if they contact the Internal Affairs Bureau, we will pass that complaint over.

Uh and we do sometimes get people that call our Internal Affairs Bureau to file complaints, we will immediately pass that over to the Department of Inspector General for investigation.

And what I will say, even if you if it's a council member's email address that you have or staff, we are still considered the city, we will also make sure that either internal affairs or the department of inspector general gets that complaint as well.

Thank you.

Uh other questions, council member?

Council Debbie?

Um, I have two questions as well.

Uh the first one is as we were looking at this piece of legislation or different pieces of legislation we were looking at.

Can uh CPD officers go and take a second job with ICE, or can they take a side job or can you tell me what your policies are around that?

Sure, all secondary employment is required to be approved by the chief of police.

So she lays eyes, um, Chief Brandt lays eyes on every single request for secondary employment.

Um, the one type of secondary employment we do not allow would be somebody to hold an act of law enforcement commission and be enforcing laws, you know, elsewhere uh while they are a CPD officer.

We uh that that's not allowed.

So they cannot work with ICE.

That's correct.

That is correct.

Um, my second, my other question is I want to illustrate this was the example that was given to me, so this is why I'm asking the question.

Um, if ICE is on the scene, they are in the process of detaining someone.

Um, the the car accident that Lynn referred to, where there was a car crash, and then people called for because of the crash, that was why CPD was on the scene.

So that's is that a good example of to the point that uh my fellow council members were making when CPD might be called because there was another criminal offense or there was some sort of reason why you then needed to call CPD because there was an action that happened at that point, that's why they might have been on the scene.

That's correct.

Yes.

Thank you.

Uh assistant chief.

So uh just a couple questions.

I mean, I think one of the chaotic natures of all of this is that you have uh folks from outside the community oftentimes coming in, uh, engage in law enforcement activity, and it's difficult to know who is who and who is doing what.

And frankly, many of these folks have been dressed in a way that looks like they're uh suited up for war rather than being on the streets of Columbus.

Uh, you know, this body worked with uh the leadership and safety a number of years ago to change uh both officer identification and sort of the the types of uniforms that our division of police officers wear.

So you can talk a little bit about again just to help members of the community start to better understand if we have a bunch of folks that randomly show up in Columbus and they've got you know police you know across their chests and they're all in army fatigues and uh holding you know what looks like automatic weapons, how that person is very different compared to what our officers uh wear, uh how they identify themselves, what they're allowed to obscure, what they're allowed to have with them.

Can you just talk about the difference of those things so our community can better understand again when they're seeing a Columbus division of police officer versus someone else?

Sure.

Yeah, our uniforms are very specific.

Now we do have different iterations depending on the type of jobs which is required.

Our bike officers look different than a patrol officer.

Same with freeway patrol, like a freeway patrol has reflective striping for safety on the freeway, things of that nature.

But there are some commonalities among all of our uniforms.

One, it'll always have a Columbus Police badge uh on the front of it.

Uh, it will also always say Columbus Police, and it always will have the officer's badge number uh listed on the external uh most layer of that.

Um we are not in the business at CPD of um having unmarked police officers jumping out on folks and and taking enforcement action.

In fact, you know, we uh we have since changed that um many years ago because of it's just not safe for officers, it's not safe for the public.

Um, and so we have folks in marked uniforms.

It should be very clear who the Columbus Division of Police personnel are uh when they are taking enforcement action.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions from my colleagues?

Seeing none, I will hand it back to Councilmember Brussel DePedia.

Thank you, Pro Tem.

And next, we I'm excited uh to have uh our commissioners from the Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs uh with a presentation.

Um Commissioners, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Immigrants and refugees are the heart of what makes Columbus and our nation the strong and vibrant community it is today.

Immigrants fuel our economy, enrich our culture, and help shape the future of Columbus through resilience, innovation, and contributions that strengthen the fiber of our community.

Yeah, for so long, immigrants and refugee communities have not had a formal consistent seat at the table when it comes to influencing city policies and decision.

The Commission on Immigrant and Refugee Affairs was created to change that.

This commission was established following the recommendations of the immigrant immigrants make Columbus Project, a research initiative led by the Ohio State University College of Social Work in partnership with the Office of Councilmember Barroso D.

Padilla, this commission now serves as a direct bridge between immigrant communities and city commission immigrant communities and the city leadership, creating a platform for advocacy, collaboration, and meaningful community informed change.

The commission's policy and advocacy committee acknowledges that the U.S.

With few guardrails resulting in racial profiling, intimidation, harassment, and death in the country's immigrant and refugee communities.

As the advisory arm of Columbus City Council, we work to amplify the voices of immigrants and refugees in advancing policies that promote inclusion, accountability, and public trust.

Since our appointment to this commission, our commissioners have attended countless community events where the collective voice from our youth, our elders, and our allies have consistently shared feeling unsafe, disconnected, and fearful of leaving their homes.

We as a commission are uh pushing a resolution uh that helps combat the feelings of feeling unsafe and hoping to restore connection in our community.

I'm gonna pass it over to Commissioner Tashalomo to share more details.

Oh, there it is.

Um the commission's policy and advocacy committee recognizes the need for accountability amongst federal immigration law enforcement.

This resolution is our call to align standard local and state law enforcement policies with the regulations for um federal agents conducting civil immigration enforcement.

Resolution ICE Out recommends the following that all federal agents conducting civil immigration enforcement operations and otherwise interacting with residents should visibly display identification, including their name and the respective federal agency they represent.

Vehicles used for these operations should be clearly marked with their respective federal agencies official seal and lettering.

That all federal agents should refrain from wearing non-medical face coverings, including gators, balaclavas, and other tactical face coverings while conducting civil immigration enforcement operations and otherwise interacting with residents.

That the Department of Homeland Security should ensure that all ICE agents deployed in Columbus and nationwide should be trained to the restored standard of 22 weeks in line with other federal law enforcement training.

That the Department of Homeland Security and all federal agents engaging in civil immigration enforcement and interacting with residents should otherwise conduct themselves in accordance with all applicable local, state, and federal laws and the U.S.

Constitution.

That the Department of Homeland Security and all federal agents interact with the residents of Columbus and nationwide in a civil manner and refrain from using lethal force.

Our hope is that this resolution will be a step in the right direction to protect the rights of Columbus residents and set a precedent for other states and cities to continue to do the same.

We would love for Columbus City Council to review this resolution in hopes to consider adoption.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

So I want to thank the commissioners.

I know at our commission meetings, this is something that we had been talking about even before we talked about the pieces of legislation.

I also want to ensure I want to take it over to our city attorney's office for just a second because we did consider this as legislation.

And can you talk a little bit about why this could not be a piece of legislation and why we chose the route of the resolution?

Thank you, Councilmember Barosa J.

Padilla.

A number of the recommendations that are being made for federal federal um operations within the city of Columbus are not within the jurisdictional authority of the City of Columbus Council.

We do not have the ability or authority to mandate any particular standards of training for federal agencies.

And I want to take it over to our uh director of our legislative research office because we did explore what other cities, what best practices they might have taken.

And I believe that this is what most cities, I know Springfield also did a resolution.

Is that correct, Director?

That's my understanding, yes, Councilmember.

So I want to thank the commission for all of their hard work and the research and the time and intention that they put into this.

This is also one of them that I think if it was if it was within our jurisdiction, we certainly would have done this because these are the strategies and the tactics that we think are most harmful.

And so I want to thank the commission for their intention.

I think this carries even more power because it came from the people, and it came, we will certainly present this for adoption on Monday at our council meeting.

And so I want to thank you all for the work that you did.

I want to open the floor to my colleagues if there's any additional questions or comments.

Yes.

Councilmember.

Not a question, but a comment.

My hope is that if this resolution passes, this is something we share with federal legislators who should be doing their job to protect residents of Ohio.

So that would be my only ask that we, if this passes, this is something that is sent to them.

Absolutely.

And and I would also say, and Councilmember Green, I see you, I'm coming down to you in just a second.

I would also say that for all of our residents who are watching, all the folks who are here, that this is all another point of advocacy that you can reach out to our uh leaders in Washington and you can advocate for uh for these protections.

And this is part of the reason they have back some of the funding for ICE is that ICE needs better enforcement.

And so these are some of the things that we can all advocate for together.

So, Councilmember Green.

Question for the city attorney's office.

Thank you, um, Chair.

Um if we um observe or violations of federal policy are documented in Columbus.

Is it the intention of the city attorney's office to then pursue legal action?

I recognize that we cannot um you know enforce them through legislative action, but certainly if violations of their own policies that then put the lives of our residents in jeopardy um occur.

Is that something that the city attorney's office is looking at how they might respond to that if that were to come to pass as it has in other cities?

Uh thank you, Councilmember Green.

The city attorney's office has been engaged with the council and with the administration on a number of legislative fronts to assure that the to the extent that we are able and and we are restrained in our ability to pursue all courses of litigation because we must have we must demonstrate standing, uh, the ability to sue.

Um but to the extent that we are able, we have brought litigation already in a number of different courts across the nation uh attempting to protect the city of Columbus and its residents.

And would there be circumstances where such violations were to occur?

We would review those specific instances and determine whether or not we would have standing to sue or not.

Also, I just want to be clear about my intent in asking that question.

I'm not, you know, I don't think we should be fishing for things, right?

I just think that we have observed, we have witnessed what's been happening around the United States and um and we have an opportunity to consider best case scenarios and worst case scenarios now.

And so I am grateful to know that your department is um being proactive in making sure that our residents are you know encountered with dignity and um respect that they all deserve no matter where they're from.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

So again, I want to thank our commissioners for being here.

I am excited to present the resolution on Monday uh for the hopeful adoption from um my council colleagues.

And with that, pro tem I hand it back to you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

I want to introduce uh Director Matt Erickson from our legislative research office.

Him and his staff has worked tirelessly over the past several weeks in order to really evaluate the different options that are were in front of this body uh to be considered the pros and cons as we sort of work through these with uh the administration and the city attorney's office.

And certainly just again want to thank him and his staff for working so diligently and so quickly in order to allow us to have this hearing here today to consider these pieces of legislation.

So with that, Director Erickson will hand it over to you.

Thank you, President Pro Tem.

I'm so grateful to have the opportunity for my staff and I to come and talk about some of these policies that we've been working on and to go through a handful of them in consideration ahead of Monday's meeting.

Um there are certainly some items that are further along than others, um, and we're um happy to talk about that.

Um, happy to take questions from council members as we go through each of these.

Um also strongly encourage council members to um direct questions to um the CPD as well as the city attorney's office as well, um, wherever it might be relevant.

Mark, you want to throw that back in?

So we're going to um talk about some of the immigration uh enforcement response policies that uh the legislative research office has been working on.

We're going to uh walk through um uh right now what's on the slate uh prohibiting 287G agreements.

Um again, I'm gonna talk about each of these individually, but um, an evidence establishing and evidence gathering repository, um staging and use of public spaces, essentially ICE's presence in public spaces and in um uh non public spaces as well.

Uh obstruction and harassment at schools and daycare centers, secondary employment prohibition, and then a uh detention center special use permit policy that's under consideration.

I just want to talk for a moment about some of the principles that really informed our consideration of some of these policies.

Um we've I think um it's been discussed a number of times so far in this hearing, but first and foremost, there's the overriding uh reality that there is existing federal supremacy uh via the Constitution and it limits or inhibits or truly informs um what it is that the city can do from a response policy and in particular an enforcement policy.

One note, I I um cited a recent report uh by a staff attorney in the state democracy research institute that of course federal enforcement officials, law enforcement officials do enjoy uh a form of immunity, but it is not uh total incomplete immunity.

That if um immigration enforcement officials um if there is documented evidence of them committing transgressions of federal, state, or local law, they will be subject to uh prosecution just like anybody else.

Um but obviously um it greatly informs how we're going to craft these policies when we're talking about how it is that we can actually uh execute and administer them.

We wanted to be thoughtful about administration.

So my staff and I have been working with a number of different departments that would have uh some role in administering some of these.

Um we certainly wanted to be informed by the experience of other cities that have had uh an ICE presence and enforcement activities within their jurisdiction.

Um we have seen a lot of other cities roll out policy packages uh in various flavors, and um trying to adapt some of those for a Columbus-based implementation uh was certainly one of our uh overriding factors.

And then notably, especially for you know, when we get into talking about some of these, uh we had to strike a balance uh to a degree between protecting the residents while also protecting city employees.

And by that, what we really mean is um I don't think it was in council's interest to uh craft policies that would potentially put our own city employees in an impossibly difficult situation.

Uh and so we certainly wanted to be thoughtful about how we crafted those so that we didn't put any of our own employees at risk.

I'm gonna talk first about prohibiting 287G agreements.

Um Ms.

Tremonte sort of alluded to this in the very beginning.

Uh you've seen a dramatic increase in the uh utilization of 287G agreements.

For anybody who is not aware, um I spelled out here 287G agreement is basically an intergovernmental agreements uh between ICE and a local law enforcement agency uh to a degree effectively deputizing local law enforcement to conduct immigration enforcement activities.

Uh it's been around for quite some time, almost 30 years now.

Um as um CPD noted, this is not something that they currently utilize, the 287G agreements uh between CPD and ICE.

Um, it's probably not technically prohibited under the 2017 ordinance that council adopted uh around immigration enforcement.

Uh and it you know, as you're seeing, especially with a recent report by FWD, uh these are sort of an integral aspect of ICE's enforcement activities.

You're seeing a over 900 percent increase in the utilization of 287 Gs uh nationwide.

And so the draft uh code under consideration right now would effectively prohibit CPD from entering into 287G agreements absence approval by Columbus City Council.

Questions or comments So George Erickson, we heard from the division of police and public safety earlier that there is not a agreement currently in place, nor has there been.

Uh so in essence, this legislation would uh one, if in fact that policy choice were to be made by the uh uh chief the chief of police or uh the division of public safety or department of public safety that that would have to come before this body.

So residents uh that could not be an action that's uh you know would get buried and no one would know about it.

That would be affirmatively this body would have to take a vote saying yes, uh we would allow you to enter into this.

Is that a fair set of the correct, President Proto?

So again, this piece of legislation is ensuring that uh one that doesn't exist now, and if it if someone wanted to move in that direction, folks elected leadership would have to take a vote on that.

That's correct, sir.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on.

Um the evidence gathering repository.

I had mentioned, and I think the city attorney's office uh alluded to this as well.

Uh, but there is not broad immunity that ICE officers enjoy by virtue of their um immigration enforcement activities.

Uh and uh we are currently considering uh directing the mayor's administration to establish an evidence gathering repository uh so that we can have a centralized space to gather uh collateral that could eventually be used for an evidentiary purposes uh for investigation by CPD uh and potentially for referral for uh prosecution to either obviously the city attorney's office or to the county prosecutor's office.

The current draft also includes a requirement that any officers that witness um uh corresponding transgressions would be required to notify their supervisor who would then be required to notify the city attorney's office.

Um this is not a novel um approach.

You've seen uh similar policies proposed and implemented in other places again in um varying formats.

Uh you've had elected officials uh be um you know openly stating that they would intend to pursue prosecution uh if they see uh crimes being committed by immigration enforcement officials.

There are concerns with this uh and why it's uh uh there's still some work that the LRO has to uh perform on this uh before we're ready to bring something forward.

Um obviously we have concerns about public safety.

This is sort of that balance between protecting residents um and protecting employees, but um I don't uh think council necessarily wants to be encouraging residents to to actively get involved in enforcement activities when they see them.

Certainly documents, uh certainly record if there are um transgressions that residents are witnessing.

Um but we've also seen that that can have um tragic consequences in Minneapolis, and that's uh sort of uh what has informed uh our direction on this.

Uh there are issues around data integrity, data storage, uh, the actual platform that might be used for this.

Uh and then we have some um concerns around sort of the investigatory flow that this would follow.

Uh again, this is this and of itself is is somewhat novel, uh, but we're still actively engaged in discussions between CPDs, city attorney's office, the prosecutor's office, uh, about the most effective way for us to really consider this if we can move forward with it.

Thank you, Chairs, and thank you, Director.

You know, one of our um uh something that is unfortunate but is fortunate is that uh ICE's increased actions in other cities has come before Columbus.

And to your point, there is a roadmap of how cities are responding.

Um to your quote to your point, we would not be the first city to go down this road of creating a repository to collect citizen um uh potential evidence.

And the one thing that I think about is that but for brave Americans documenting uh in Minneapolis um the murders of Ms.

Good and Mr.

Paretti, we might not even be in a situation to uh know the truth.

I know that there are a lot of concerns and questions around how we would do this.

Looking at other cities, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia that are say a month, two months ahead of us.

What are the options for how one does this?

Is it is it recommended as a city attorney?

Maybe this is a question for the city attorney and and the department.

Uh are we more interested in housing this type of data internally, or are we more interested in housing this uh in partnering with an outside agency to collect this?

What what direction is uh are we collectively thinking out loud about and what are the um other concerns that one would consider and we have learned from other cities?

Council President, you definitely um highlighted a couple of the potential options that some other states and municipalities have engaged in from just soliciting uh tips effectively or any other evidence that uh residents may have to uh engaging with a third party with a nonprofit, with another um you know legal advocacy organization and effectively deputizing them for the collection and transmittal um of evidentiary collateral.

Um so certainly that spectrum is certainly under consideration.

I would defer to uh the division of police as well as the city attorney's office about um what they think the most effective means or mechanism may be.

Thank you, President Harden.

Uh thank you, uh Mr.

Erickson.

Um so it greatly depends upon what the intended use of the particular repositories is to be.

If we're thinking about it purely from the perspective of has a crime been committed, and do we want to gather evidence of a crime, then we would want to be careful about chain of custody.

We'd want to be careful about having uh making sure that any video that is received or evidence that is received by the city is properly logged, retained, maintained, reviewed, investigated, and if it appears that a crime has occurred, that it goes down the normal path of being investigated to determine if there's probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.

A number of the videos that have been provided across the country uh may not like rise to the level of a crime.

Certainly some obviously did, um, but others do not, but they maybe just document general behaviors.

Uh then the question is going to be again who's going to review that to determine that it goes into one category versus another category and what its intended uses.

It's it's fortunate that Columbus is thinking about this now in the sense that we're trying to determine what might be the path forward or what we might need in the future.

But I would also point out that some of the other cities that have created a repository are doing so specifically because they have already engaged and have already gone down the path specifically of going through litigation.

Um in some of the other cities that were mentioned, uh Chicago as an example, um we had National Guard deployment, and we had specific litigation that was related to that behavior as well as the ICE enforcement action.

And so in that case, where there was ongoing litigation about specific activity on the ground already in progress, then it made sense for those law departments in particular who are engaged in the litigation to solicit that kind of video.

At the moment, fortunately, we don't have that situation.

So we have we have time to think about it, and we have time to decide what is the purpose for which we are gathering it, how are we going to maintain it, who's going to review it, and what obligations will that create?

And so those are some of the conversations that we're having.

Can I ask another follow-up about that?

Um are we thinking through issues related to the repository if it's housed here of you know potential issues if those cases end up going to court about attorney client privilege, if they have legal representation, um, and also are we thinking about issues related to or government, our data is easily accessible, uh, it can be requested by others.

Um, whether or not that would be a risk to residents and their identity is that might be submitting information and versus if it was housed externally.

Thank you, Councilmember Green.

That's a that's a very valid point.

So if evidence is provided to a law enforcement agency under an allegation that a crime may have been committed, then that evidence that is provided to the investigatory body and or to a prosecuting body if it's gotten to that point is going to be protected by uh clear's protections under the Ohio Public Records Law, as well as work product on behalf of both investigatory and prosecutorial agencies.

However, if the video is simply being provided to a governmental body without a particular allegation of crime, but simply to provide it, um, then like our 911 calls or or like other things along those lines where those communications are made to a governmental body, they are public records.

And so one of the very big considerations is how we are receiving those and for what purpose, because if it's received for criminal investigation, it's treated very differently under the Ohio public record laws than is if received simply because somebody decides to send us a video and send it to the city.

If it is a public record, then anybody can request it and anybody can get it.

Um and if there's information on there that might be of a sensitive nature to a particular individual, there are specific exemptions under the public records law for redacting aspects of that, such as social security numbers.

But it may not protect an individual who, for instance, might be undocumented and is captured in that particular footage.

Thank you so much.

I I recognize we don't have all the answers today, but I'm just grateful to know that these are all really complex issues that we are thinking through, but also trying to resolve these questions quickly.

So thank you so much.

Thank you.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I was joined by my colleagues uh in the LRO, um, Kirsten Astosi and Sam Dooling.

They've also been working hard on some of these policies.

And I actually, Mark, if you want to put that back up, I want to pass this over to Sam.

Thank you very much.

Uh members of Columbus City Council for allowing me to present on this policy.

This language came initially from examples from Minneapolis and Chicago's separation ordinance.

The draft prohibits any governmental personnel from using a parking lot, vacant lot, or garage controlled or operated by the City of Columbus as a staging area, processing location, operation space, or any other similar use to aid federal immigration law enforcement.

Furthermore, the draft requires the Director of Finance and Management to install clear signage at such properties to that effect.

Why the Director of Finance and Management, that department maintains quite a few city facilities, certainly not all.

There are lots of other facilities that are under different departments like recreation and parks, so the draft attends to that by requiring cooperation among the different departments when the director of finance is installing such signage to reflect the policy.

The director is also required to determine which locations require something like physical barriers, locking gates.

Additionally, the city, in addition to city controlled parking lots, vacant lots, and garages, the draft prohibits federal immigration authorities from accessing restricted or semi-restricted spaces controlled by the city, such as employee only city facilities and those that require uh security badge access.

If federal immigration authorities attempt to enter such spaces, the expectation of city employees is that they would request proof of a judicial warrant or some other legal instrument proving the authorities' right to enter.

If an employee of the city becomes aware of collaboration with immigrant uh immigration enforcement authorities to identify city spaces for use by immigration officials, then the employees required to report the violation to their department head and or human resources representative.

Failure to do so may result in investigation or disciplinary action.

And finally, the draft requires the director of finance and management also to design signage for private property owners who elect to post signs on their own property to lawfully restrict access by immigrant uh immigration enforcement officials.

So the director must post um that signage template as well as know your rights materials to the city's official website and city bulletin.

Um before I pass it along, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Um, could you be more specific in city owned spaces just for folks have asked us, but can you just go down the list of what that would include?

And then secondarily, what would the signage look like and what would it, what specifically would the sign say for folks to just for knowledge of what we're asking?

Thank you, Councilmember Bros.

The the purpose, I think the basic intent of this legislation was to address whether immigration officials would be accessing particular types of city facilities.

So the language that's generally employed in the draft as it stands right now is city controlled.

Um there are some leases in which city property has been leased out and is under a current legal agreement with some other kind of party.

So we tried to make it clear that any land that city controls.

Um the the draft lists parking lots, vacant lots, garages, but those types of properties are controlled by different departments.

This might include a city-owned parking garage under the Department of Public Service or Finance.

Um this might include a parking lot that is at a recreation center.

Um sure I'm missing quite a few.

I'm happy to get a more exhaustive list if that would be helpful.

And then can you also um talk about the restrictive or open spaces versus restrictive spaces?

Uh just can you give examples of those?

Yes, thank you.

Uh thank you, Councilmember Stupidia.

The an example of a semi-restricted space, so that um is defined in the policy to be basically a space where members of the public might not generally be expected to be, but are welcome as guests of an employee of the city.

So, for example, I think my office in City Hall would be an example that's uh not it's not like a lobby, but a guest who uh signs in to the security desk might be welcome into a semi-restricted space like mine.

And then a restricted space, I think it's a little bit more stringent, might contain um city server hardware kind of firmware, something that's highly sensitive and protected, maybe some kind of um archives, um something that needs to be under greater security.

And I'm happy to talk about the signage too if you'd like.

Um Thank you, Councilmember.

So, right now the draft language of the signage that would be required to be posted by the director of finance and management at city proper uh city control properties would read this properties controlled by the city of Columbus per chapter 155 of the Columbus City Codes, this property is not authorized for use in any civil immigration enforcement operations.

And then similarly, signage that the director of finance management would be required to produce for any private property owners who may wish to post something similar, would read this is private property for chapter 155 of the Columbus City Codes.

I, the property owner, assert my right not to authorize the use of this property in any civil immigration enforcement operations unless required by a judicial warrant or other provision of state or federal law.

I assert this right under my own discretion and assume any legal risk associated therewith.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A couple questions.

Can you, and this may be uh better suited for our city attorney's office, but I I do think that there is some importance in distinguishing between what is staging activity and what is enforcement activity and what we should be looking out for with regard to this policy.

So if you can give some examples of what does what does ICE immigration staging mean and how is that different from enforcement, and does that have any implications on the city's authority to restrict that behavior?

Thank you so much, Councilmember Ross.

I certainly defer to the city attorney's office.

Thank you, Councilmember Ross and uh Mr.

Dooling.

Um staging activity is described, I believe, in the draft as an area where essentially the immigration enforcement agents have come and brought in, you know, their vans, um, there's uh there might be um a collection of agents in that particular point.

In other words, it's low location from which they are centralizing all of their enforcement activities.

That's as distinct from certainly any place that the public has a right to be, an ICE agent also has the right to be.

And so we're distinguishing the ability to kind of set up and to take over a space and use it for immigration purposes from the ability to access a space that is already open to the public for an enforcement action.

So um attorney Laura.

When you just uh in plain language, like layperson language, that means like if I'm if I'm an ICE agent and I am planning on making enforcement or or executing an enforcement activity like viewing or doing some sort of surveillance or do doing some sort of um galvanizing of other ICE agents, I would not be able to do that on city controlled property pursuant to the language in this ordinance.

But if I have already done all of that and I'm literally going into a building to make an arrest, is that different from staging?

It's it's more akin to the difference between being a hiker and being a camper.

Okay.

For a layperson's perspective, if if you're going there with the intention of kind of you're using this as your base of operations, and you're even if it's for a short period of time versus a long period of time operations, and you are staging your next activities by gathering the other enforcement agents together in that location, gathering vehicles together in that location, kind of like you would at a campsite.

That would be staging.

If you're simply observe an individual that you know to be in violation that you have the authority to take into custody, and that person happens to be in a public space that is open to the public that happens to be owned by the city, you would not be prevented from doing that under this uh draft as drafted.

Thank you.

And then can we talk just a little bit about the distinguishing factors from uh of an administrative warrant versus a judicial warrant?

What does that look like?

Uh yeah.

Um so this is complicated area of law.

Um a judicial warrant is just what it sounds like in the sense that it is a authorization signed by a judge of competent jurisdiction allowing an individual who is a law enforcement agent or who is an enforcement agent for an administrative body to execute either a search and or an arrest.

So you can have a judicial search warrant, you could have a judicial arrest warrant.

Those can come from uh, you know, judicial warrants can come from the state uh government, governmental judges, they can come from federal judges.

In the area of immigration enforcement, they come from federal judges.

And so they are they carry and what makes that distinct from an administrative warrant is that means that it has been reviewed to determine whether or not they meets the standard.

Um a lot of them are probable cause, others are gonna be a preponderance of the evidence.

In other words, they reviewed the evidence to determine whether or not there's sufficient evidence uh to allow for that warrant to issue.

Okay.

Administrative warrants in the immigration space, and there are some experts here in the room.

I am not an expert in immigration law, although I'm learning.

Um, administrative warrants in this immigration space can be signed by members of the enforcement agencies themselves.

In other words, they could have been reviewed, but more often than not, they are actually signed under the authority of the immigration enforcement officers themselves, which means they don't have a third-party level of review going before a judge to make a determination as to whether or not that is going to be supported by the facts and evidence.

So if you're going to enter a space uh that you want to search a particular person's residence, it has long been the practice of the immigration enforcement agencies to only do that if they have a judicial warrant.

That policy has changed.

And so what we have now seen is administrative warrants being used to execute searches.

Um it is easy to determine if what you have in front of you is a judicial warrant or an administrative warrant, in the sense that you can look for a judge's signature.

However, not every activity requires that you physically have on your person a copy of a warrant.

And that's what makes this all very challenging.

Thank you.

I think uh Councilmember Green, real quick before we go to your um question.

I think uh we also discuss this as it pertains to um, I think Director Erickson, you mentioned this when we talk about our city employees.

This is going to take also a level of training to ensure that as we're talking about who can come in spaces and what they're asking for, that they do have some sort of level of understanding.

Um, just because this particular piece is can be confusing, especially if this is you know, we don't expect all of our folks to be, you know, have the sort of level of background to understand one or the other.

So I'm just acknowledging that from members of the public as we talk about these um different policies that there it does go a layer deep because as we're thinking about, you know, if you're working the the front desk at a rec center or one of our other facilities, that we're asking you what we're asking you to do in ensuring that folks feel confident in what that looks like and what that policy is moving forward.

So it takes us a little bit of time to figure out how to get that out to everyone and ensure their safety as well.

So, councilmember Green.

So common spaces at Rec centers would still be considered public spaces under this policy that are accessible to CPB, is that right?

No, just making sure you're asking me, Councilmember Green.

Sorry.

Oh, yes, I'm sorry, sorry.

Yes, um, so that's one of the things that needs to be discussed in implementation of the policy.

We we have defined terms that we're currently trying to refine to just to describe what is a semi-restricted space versus a restricted space.

And places like recreation centers are what make it challenging to define.

Um there are some areas of recreation centers that in order to be in that particular space, you have to have a gym membership as an example.

Um so you wouldn't be able to freely go into that particular area without being a member of that organization or of that recreational center and you know, flagging that and providing your identification.

There are other areas of recreation centers that are open to the general public without being a member of that center.

Um I'm also thinking of you know locations within public parks where there might be enclosed areas within Columbus City Parks.

Um there are spaces there that you can rent for like weddings and things along those lines, but other times they're open to the public.

And so we have to really be considerate how it's going to be enforced, how people are going to understand what areas are open to the public and are not, and to have a really careful conversation about that because you know, to council member Prosa Deepadilla's point, um, some of our buildings, um, and if anybody who came in here to the meeting tonight, you'll see that it was staffed by security and by the Columbus Division of Police, and they have a full grounding in search and seizure, and they have an understanding of what judicial and administrative warrants are.

But other city-owned buildings like recreation centers are not staffed by Columbus Division of Police.

Um, they're staffed by individuals who have varying degrees of familiarity with the topics that we're talking about, and we certainly don't want to put somebody in a position of you know, responding to an individual that shows up there dressed in camo and police sign and trying to just make a decision about whether or not they do or don't have a right to be there.

And we certainly don't want to put somebody in a position of you know responding to an individual that shows up there dressed in camo and police sign and trying to just make a decision about whether or not they do or don't have a right to be there.

Well, and I was reading through some of the written testimony that we got, and there was one that stood out to me that was uh from a librarian or a person who works at a library and talking about um every day they go to work, just like in fear that um that someone is gonna walk through the doors and there's gonna be some sort of incident on their ground.

So I guess like then the next question is related to the signage that we are gonna make available for community partners.

Is that on those private properties that are owned?

I I also think about um hospitals where you know people are now delivering babies in their living rooms because they're afraid to go receive medical care, like that can't, you know, is there opportunity for us to enjoy through um MOU or some sort of agreement with other organizations in some of these policies?

Um you know how effective are those signs, and then what happens if a violation of that occurs?

Um, you know, is that something that we're gonna pursue litigation related to?

So as it's currently constructed, it's a draft is currently constructed.

It provides a template for any private organization that might choose to decide to enforce that particular policy.

It doesn't mandate that.

And so I would imagine that the Columbus Metropolitan Library organization is probably having the very same conversations that we're having here tonight about how and to what extent they are going to draw that line and and train their employees.

Same with hospitals and those organizations.

They have to make and have these hard, difficult conversations and make decisions about the extent to which and and how they're going to educate and train people so that we don't have individuals that uh believe they have a protection that they may not, um, and also so they can decide how best they want to use their spaces.

Um we in the city can't make that decision on their behalf.

Um, that's their private property owners, and they have um decisions that they need to make additional questions for this piece.

Okay.

Uh at this point, I'd like to turn it over to Kirsten Astosi to talk about obstruction and harassment as well as secondary employment prohibition.

Good evening, council members.

Thank you for having me tonight.

I will be presenting on the two policies that Director Erickson mentioned, starting with um increased penalties associated with an obstruction harassment of a school and or a child and daycare, a child daycare center.

So starting with uh obstruction piece, this also includes um physical violence or physical threatening within 15 feet of the premises of a school or daycare center.

In contrast to the previous policy that um you all have been contemplating, this is more oriented towards a civilian who, for one reason or another, is causing a child, a family, an employee to feel unsafe or to be unable to enter their school or their daycare center.

Um this is something that is really similar to another piece of the city codes regarding reproductive health care facilities.

So these types of actions are in most cases, there's a number of actions that are covered by this policy, but most of them are fourth degree misdemeanors.

But this would modify that to a first degree misdemeanor.

Again, if the actions were taking place within 15 feet of the premises of a school or child daycare center.

Additionally, um, this also creates a first-degree miscommunic misdemeanor for any telecommunication or mail or email other forms of communication that constitutes harassment against the employee of one of those types of facilities to provide an extra layer of protection for those places that are serving families, serving children, um, and their employees.

Any questions on this piece?

Just one.

Um have we considered what sentencing looks like?

I know we are making it an M1, but obviously our partners in the court will still have discretion from a sentencing perspective on, you know, it is there are mandatory minimums, mandatory maximums for an M1, but there's a lot of space in between that gives our our partners in the court discretion.

Have we considered mandatory sentencing built into this legislation for things like this?

If not, is that something we could look at and maybe talk about?

Council member, it's absolutely something that we can look at and talk about.

Um I don't think there's currently any required uh mandatory minimums.

Yeah, thank you so much for the question, council member.

I apologize, I don't have the draft itself right in front of me and I don't want to speak incorrectly.

I know that it contemplates a 1,000 dollar fine and up to a year in jail, but I can't remember if we if there's a minimum.

Yep.

So it would just be that up to one year in jail, what I what is what I'm thinking about, and if there are any mandatory sentencing kind of guidelines that we could build into the legislation to ensure that someone's not always getting away with the minimum sentencing on issues like this, which are very serious and have dire consequences to our community.

And I want to also just give context for this one in particular.

We saw the harassment of especially immigrant-owned daycare centers based upon some rhetoric that was put out in the media, and so because of that, we wanted to be responsive for not just what is happening currently, but in the future, if to keep our kids safe and to keep families safe.

And so that's where this particular piece comes from, because if folks are wondering how does this connect with the other pieces, this is where the connection lies because what we saw were folks kind of coming in themselves, almost deputizing themselves to look at the conditions of uh daycare centers.

And so that was creating an unsafe environment, especially for our kids for the daycare center workers, but then certainly for the families that go to those daycares.

And so we want to ensure that we're protecting them.

That's why we want to increase those penalties to disincentivize that behavior to let folks know that you I mean, this should already be obvious, but clearly it was not.

And so I wanted I wanted to give everyone context for why we were pursuing this in particular.

Councilmember, you look like you have that.

Well, and also just people attempting to enter these centers under false pretenses, claiming to be a parent so that you can get gain access to the building and then harass.

So you have those two things, they don't all necessarily start with harassment, it begins with deception and um for the purpose of harassment.

No, and I appreciate that context as well.

I wanted to just ensure folks understood where that was coming from.

Do folks have other questions, yes, Councilmember Green?

I guess I just don't understand, and I think I um maybe asked this to a council president pro tem, but you know, when I take my son to daycare in the morning, I have to buzz in on a locked door, physically identify myself as his parents using my first and my last name, like you know, you're not just permitted to walk into a building and inspect it just because you like to.

So I just don't understand.

So a lot of a lot of what we heard were home daycare centers that don't have that sort of level of equipment, right?

So if you're running a home daycare center where you might have, you know, 10 kids or something smaller, it's usually they may not all have all of that.

I think you know, language barriers or folks coming in again under the under deceptive purposes saying they're with the state, saying they're investigating, saying they're they're the alternative pickup for a child, that sort of thing.

Those are the sort of situations that we heard back from folks, and and I think that because we have so many home daycare centers that are run um by immigrant families uh for all of the reasons that they would be.

Um, I think that's what we're really trying to protect against because we heard of many cases where this was happening.

So that's why this measure was put into place.

And as I understand this chair, this is not just the activity that happens once you're knocking on the door to the daycare.

This is in and around that daycare.

So it would be curtilage, it would be anything within 15 feet, and so if there are harassment activities that are happening that would prevent a parent from even coming onto the property of a daycare, this type of policy would address that as well.

That's correct, or even some of the if they're getting hate mailed or if they're getting any sort of correspondence asking them for things under the again, those false pretenses that would fall under the harassment.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, council members.

The second policy that I'm discussing tonight is a prohibition on secondary employment with US Customs and Border Patrol as well as US immigration and custom enforcement.

Um, as you've heard tonight, this is actually already broadly contemplated by the division of police, by city code under Chapter 161.10, and um, this is just furthering those efforts in city code, affirming those efforts in city code and applying it to all city employees.

Um, but just to reiterate, it is a prohibition on secondary employment with uh CVP and with ICE um employees that are in violation of this would be subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination of their employment.

There is something in the draft that isn't on the slides tonight, but if anyone's looking at the draft in the future, I just don't want it to take them off guard, which is an exception for employees that are acting under official duties.

And essentially what that means, as you've heard, the city's not going to enter into a 287 G agreement.

Existing city code prohibits city resources from being used for immigrations enforcement.

But what that means is that if a city employee in an official duty as authorized by their supervisor and however appropriate for that employee is working with one of these agencies in an anti-terrorism effort that is unrelated to immigration enforcement, that that would still be permitted under this.

So that is why that's there, but I didn't want it to surprise anyone.

Any questions on this piece?

And uh city attorney, I just want folks to then understand that as a we are an employer, like any other employer in the city.

And so, as an employer, this is a policy that we can we can put into place for our employees.

Can you talk about that?

Thank you, Councilmember Barosa Depatia.

Um, the city has a number of of policies and across various departments, they administer them different ways.

As assistant chief convice always already referenced at the beginning of this hearing, um, the division of police has a very specific policy about how they handle secondary employment, and that is certainly something that's within the power and authority of an employer to make sure that the individual that is um working for them as is a city employee doesn't have any potential for conflict of interest or things along those lines.

And because the city has the specific policies that Ms.

Estos uh referenced already in the city code, um, working for immigration customs and border control would likely come into conflicts with some of the very specific policies this council has already passed related to how we interact with immigration enforcement.

Thank you.

Additional questions, director?

Thank you.

The last item that we wanted to discuss tonight's um you heard Ms.

Tramonte um similarly make references to uh the increased use of detention facilities.

And in discussions with the city attorney's office uh and building and zoning, uh, we arrived at a conclusion that probably the most effective way to limit the deployment of uh detention centers is to uh to um effectively bureaucratize the process.

So uh section 3389 in uh city code uh is a section that is traditionally dedicated to special use permits.

These are four facilities that are very, very idiosyncratic or that um have uh very specific needs that to a degree sort of require a higher level of uh review and approval uh involving the uh Board of Uh Zoning Adjustments.

You see that uh we have special special use permits already established for things like uh amphitheaters, cemeteries, animal shelters, composting facilities.

Uh so very, very simply uh this code change would establish a new special use permit uh for detention facilities that would then have to be reviewed by the Board of Zoning uh zoning adjustments if uh the uh if if ICE or federal immigration uh federal immigration authorities are operating a uh detention center uh without having a permit, uh theoretically the uh director of building and zoning services would have the authority to uh issue a vacate order or a stop work order um on that particular facility because it hasn't it's out of compliance uh with city code and our processes questions or comments.

Um the this here specifically says warehouse.

There are other types of large buildings that could also be used for the same purposes, a big barn.

Are we going to include any building use or just if they go for a warehouse, which is a very specific building type?

I think it's a very fair point, Councilmember.

I'm sure uh we can modify some of the language so that it is uh more all-encompassing.

Additional questions about this last piece.

So I think I feel like this one is very straightforward.

I know that we've had conversations before.

We know that ICE is shopping around for facilities like this across the country, and so again, we want to put measures in that are protecting our folks and that are preventing them from having a detention center like this in our city.

So with that, I want to thank uh I want to thank our legislative research office.

I want to thank our city attorney's office for all the work literally in all of our departments that are here for the past week, all of our energy past week, week and a half, all of our energies have really been diverted to looking through all of these policy pieces.

I want to ensure that folks also know that um all of them uh may take a little bit more time for us to further refine them with any piece of policy.

We don't want there to be unintended consequences.

We don't want there, we want it to be the strongest piece of policy that clearly has an intention and that meets that intention.

And so there might be another piece of code or there might be something else that we need to kind of work through.

So I just want to put that out as a disclaimer because what you may see on Monday is maybe some of these, not all of these.

What you may see in a couple weeks is another is another batch of these or another one of these.

And then there might be some that we're gonna put further on the back burner or might change just a little bit because we have to again investigate how do we ensure that the intention of what we are getting at is meeting uh what we have what we have put out there.

So um I just want to give that little preview.

We are now going to move to public testimony.

So um I'm sorry, yes.

One last question for LRO before you switch over.

Um so one, I director Arckson to your entire team appreciate the work that you all have put in over the last couple of weeks in getting us here to this point.

One policy that I did not see up there, and I think is extremely important is really and one that should fall within the purview of the City of Columbus is for any vendor, contractor, anyone receiving money from the City of Columbus to certify whether or not they're working with ICE.

Can we speak to like just the challenges around that?

Why that's something not being proposed today?

Certainly.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember.

That was a policy that we had explored uh and look at a number of different iterations of it.

Uh ultimately just the the broad sketch is that uh we would establish either new contract language or something in code that effectively says that if you are entering into a any kind of financial agreements with the city of Columbus, then you would be subsequently prohibited from entering into uh any other uh financial engagement or or any other contractual uh obligation or engagement with uh CBP or ICE.

Um ultimately we had significant raised significant concerns about um unanticipated negative externalities.

Uh it there are uh a tremendous number of potential entanglements uh between uh any number of entities that the city contracts with and federal immigration enforcement uh uh entities uh that could have had a sort of a almost a crippling deleterious impact on city operations um if we had run into something that we weren't uh fully anticipating.

Uh and while of course the city wants to leverage its uh purchasing power and um financial ability to to affect uh good policy, uh we had um manifold concerns about uh the unintended consequences associated with that.

And I appreciate that and I understand that um no one wants to cripple the city as we continue to move pro make progress in our city.

However, the reality is that if there are companies out there that are working with ICE after Americans have been murdered, after children have been put in harm's way, after unconstitutional acts have been witnessed, those companies need to be called out for it.

Period.

This is not a it's just business as usual.

This is not something we can just wash over and assume is just gonna be okay tomorrow.

It's unacceptable.

Companies today who are in the city of Columbus who are choosing to work with ICE after seeing everything or making a moral choice that that does not matter to them.

Thank you, council member.

I think I don't think all is lost.

I think that we're continuing to explore um what are ways that we can meet exactly what you said.

I think we weren't, I don't think we were quite ready to present that now.

I don't think that that means it's off the table.

I think it just meets, but I appreciate that and deeply feel that.

I I don't think anyone here would disagree with you.

So I would I would also like to ask as we are considering what that looks like, that we can be very specific about what crippling effects means so that we understand tangibly what um compromises and negotiations we might be making as we move forward in this legisl legislation.

No, I appreciate that.

Absolutely.

Do we do you want to give just even like a broad example of what that would be, Director?

To a degree, I might even defer back to CPD in the city attorney's office.

Um there were some departments that had raised um significant concerns about having to go through.

I mean, there are thousands and thousands of contracts that the city enters into on an annual basis and the investigations associated with those contracts and whether there is compliance or not.

And the some of the city's suppliers for critical commodities that the city uses on a daily basis, there's a strong likelihood that those entities have financial entanglements with ICE and CBP as well.

I don't have specific examples I can say right now, but happy to provide those at a later day.

Yeah, no, you don't need them today.

I need that.

But as we move forward in this conversation, just being prepared to give some specifics, I would ask.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

And I think as we continue to explore other pieces of legislation or you know, other things will develop.

And as we come back, we want to revisit things and have this kind of conversation, and we'll certainly have another public hearing or town halls to talk about things.

I also highly encourage folks that if there's a piece of legislation today that you have questions about or wonders about, um, please reach out to our offices.

We're happy to have the conversation, happy to share the information.

We have a one pager that will go out, um, but happy to continue to have these conversations.

I think this is how this is the best way the policy is made is by having both community input, expert input, and um coming together to make the strongest piece of legislation.

So thank you both.

Any additional comments, questions?

Great.

Yes.

Just real quick on that point.

Yes.

Because again, as I said, no one wants to cripple the city in terms of our operations.

Um, but the reality is in this climate where folks are seeing their behavior and deeming it to be unacceptable.

Just listing these companies out may be enough for them to decide that's not something I want to do anymore.

So thank you, Councilmember.

We're gonna move to public commentary.

Okay, we're gonna move to public commentary.

I I don't want to stifle your sentiments here, Councilmember.

Um, so the first three speakers are going to be, I will announce you the first speaker coming on down is Dr.

Silashi from ETSS.

Next, we have Karen Motzing Mo Center.

I got it right, yes, from Jewish Family Services, and then Angie Plummer right after.

So if you all want to get yourselves ready, um, Dr.

Silesi, come on down, the podium is yours.

Uh, just a reminder to everyone who is um giving testimony tonight.

If you will please say your name, any organizations that you represent, and then just a reminder that you do have three minutes because we have lots of speakers, and I want to make sure that everyone's voices get gets heard.

So, Dr.

Sileshi, welcome back to Council.

Sorry.

Good evening.

Thank you so much for my voice is stolen by this virus or maybe the allergies.

But uh council president, um Protein Dorans, Council Member Lourdes Barroso de Padilla and members of the City Council.

My name is Silesia Ayalo Asfau, and I'm here representing it as to our social services.

Myself and other community leaders are here today because the safety of a city is measured by the safety of it is uh helpless residents.

When our neighbors fear that the trip to a public park, a drop of a daycare, or a simple interaction with city service could lead to a family separation, the entire fabric of Columbus is weakened.

Um I stand in solidarity in strong support of this legislative package.

Specifically, I want to highlight three critical areas where these changes will protect the dignity and privacy of Columbus citizens.

Number one is protecting public space and schools by prohibiting ICE from using our parking and parking lots as staging grounds without a judicial warrant.

We're reclaiming our public space for this community.

Furthermore, the protection for schools and daycare again is vigilant harassment are essential.

No parents should have a worry about amateur stocks, film takers, their children under the guise of investigation while they are simply trying to access education.

Second, accountability and transparency requiring council approval for 287G agreement ensures that they are cooperation with federal immigration enforcement is public, transparent decision, not one made behind door uh behind doors, closed doors.

Additionally, the creation of an evidence gathering repository empowers our residents to document their experience and hold authorities responsible.

Third one is a zoning and detention.

I strongly support the suspension of permitting private detention facilities.

Columbus should be a city of welcome, not a city of case.

These are not just administrative court changes, they are declaration of our city's values by request by requesting the federal agencies mirror the idea and training standards of the CPD, where we're demanding baseline of respect and professional conduct that our residents deserve.

We are ensuring the city's employees serve the people of Colombia exclusively without the conflict of interest of us outside employment with ICE.

I thank Councilmember Dorrenz and Barros de Padilla for their leadership on this.

I urge the council to pass this package in its entirety to ensure that Columbus remains a place where everybody every family can live, work, and go to school without the constant shadow of intimidation.

Thank you for your time and for the opportunity to testify.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Silesian.

Thank you for your continued advocacy and your work to support our communities and families.

Any additional comments?

Thank you so much for being here this evening.

After Angie Plummer, uh Elizabeth Brown from YWCA.

Hello, I'm Karen Mosenter, and I'm the CEO of Jewish Family Services.

For over 108 for 118 years now, Jewish Family Services has supported immigrants and refugees who came to Central Ohio seeking refuge from war, persecution, and violence.

Our work is driven by the core Jewish value of welcoming the stranger, and by the fact that the Jewish people themselves have been immigrants and refugees throughout much of history.

Over this past century, Jewish Family Services has assisted both Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants and refugees from all over the world.

We work closely with community partners and government entities like the City of Columbus to help these families build stafe, safe, stable, and productive lives in Central Ohio.

Jewish Family Services supports council's efforts to address increasing threats to the safety and stability of our foreign-born friends and neighbors.

Some may question whether the proposed legislation is necessary.

I know many people have expressed the view that if people are here legally, they have nothing to worry about.

Or if immigrants haven't committed crimes, they're safe.

That view does not fully reflect the complexity of federal law enforcement practices.

We are seeing people who are here legally, facing detention, prolonged processing, and abrupt changes in status that are creating profound instability.

Jewish Family Services is assisting families who have legal status that should enable them to continue going to school and work, running their businesses, and contributing to this community in countless ways.

Nevertheless, we have seen that these families are not safe.

So we are helping them prepare for the unthinkable.

Parents being separated from their children, family members being detained for days, weeks, or even months in deplorable conditions, individuals being deported to unfamiliar and unsafe locations.

We know that City Council can't stop this from happening.

The city does not have the power to regulate federal immigration policy or activity.

Council can, however, regulate how city resources and property are used, which this legislation is designed to address.

The legislation is also designed to promote appropriate transparency and accountability for federal officials.

Council's efforts will protect local residents in ways that improve transparency, increase the likelihood that residents' civil rights will be protected, and preserve scarce city resources for the community's benefit and maximize public safety.

This is an important and appropriate role for local government.

Thank you for your efforts to protect and hold trust for the people of our community.

And thank you again for all of the work that you do.

I think if folks did not realize the first three speakers represent a resettlement agencies, they do the very important work of once folks are coming here from different places to help them get established along with many other services that they provide.

But I think as we think about the work, these are the folks who are some of the most proximate to the populations that we're talking about.

And so I just want to thank you all for the work that you do.

I know that, especially as we look at federal funding, if we look at people who are in the process, as we're trying to process them through and ensure that they have what they need.

We've had many conversations about what that looks like, what employment now looks like because of the big beautiful bill, what services that they're going to get cut off from.

So I just want to acknowledge that folks who we have speaking today are experts who are literally quite proximate to these families and are seeing the challenges every day.

So I just want to thank you again for your work and for your advocacy and for being here today.

And with that, Angie Plummer from Chris.

And after Liz Brown, then it's Dania Hamad from Franklin County Public Defenders Collective.

Thank you, President Pro Tem Dorans and Councilmember Barroso de Pedia and all members of council.

I'm here this evening supportive of council's efforts to protect our residents from ICE abuses.

My name is Angie Plummer, and I am the executive director of CRIS, community refugee and immigration services.

Our mission is to help refugees and immigrants reach safety and stability, sustain self-sufficiency, and achieve successful integration into the Central Ohio community.

To do this, we have numerous services that we offer, including resettling tens of thousands of individuals to Columbus.

After our initial resettlement, our work continues to provide housing, English classes, job readiness support, immigration legal services, and health and wellness programming.

In my 26 years at CRIS, the past year has been the most difficult for Chris and for the people that we serve.

We faced funding cuts, layoffs, and a deluge of horrific and damaging executive orders coming from the White House.

And yet, I am filled with gratitude for how this community has stood by us.

We've had a groundswell of engagement from volunteers, faith-based groups, schools, bakeries, breweries, and musicians and more.

There is no doubt in my mind, Columbus is a welcoming community.

And we, meaning the immigrant community and supporting organizations have felt that support from you.

Our elected officials, through your supportive words, and now these proposed actions in the form of ordinances, we're here to discuss tonight.

So first, I'd like to talk a little bit about sensitive locations.

Our schools, hospitals, places of worship, and courts.

As you know, in January of 2025, the federal government rescinded a long-standing policy that protected these locations from immigration enforcement activity.

Federal litigation is ongoing to determine whether that was done legally.

Meanwhile, this rescission has led to a climate of fear in our community, particularly with the increase in ICE activity locally.

And the given and given the news of how ICE has carried out its activities in other cities.

We now have foreign-born residents, regardless of status, who fear going to the doctor, fear going to court, avoid going to houses of worship.

Youth are not participating in school activities.

It's painful to think of the repercussions that this will have.

I want to share some specific examples.

First, there's a Somali woman, I'll call Hannah, who was scheduled for surgery in December.

Her mother called me and asked if she should cancel that surgery because it was during Operation Buckeye, and she was afraid to have her daughter sitting at the hospital.

Second example involves clients in our crime victims assistance program, many who are now afraid to go to municipal court because of increased ICE presence at the courthouse.

Every day, Columbus residents are choosing not to attend court because they fear immigration enforcement.

This includes witnesses and victims.

The fear extends to green card holders, even naturalized U.S.

citizens who have questions about whether they're safe from ICE harassment.

And I see page two, I am out of time.

But so much to say.

Thank you for your support, and we welcome offering any expertise we have while these ordinances are discussed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Angie.

I I also want to say I know that we've had lots of conversations about the municipal court.

I want folks to know that we cannot, the municipal court is a different, they follow a different set of rules.

We cannot force them to do anything.

We have had conversations with the municipal court.

You and I have talked about this.

We've had conversations with the municipal court.

I would also just implore folks that if not but for the people, change happens.

And so the continued advocacy of people sometimes means even more than the conversations we have.

And so I would just encourage folks that as you're seeing the entities that we don't have control over, your voices matter.

Your voices matter.

And so our voice is joined with yours.

Just know that we stand in solidarity.

We have had conversations with the municipal court.

I think they are grappling with what it is that they want to do and how they want to move forward.

But I just can't implore folks more to share your stories, share your advocacy, write those letters, you know, uh create posts, etc.

Because that does make a difference and it does move the needle.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And we appreciate all efforts to make sure that ICE is held accountable for their activities, including this idea of a repository of information.

I mean, we know now more than ever how important video evidence is to make sure people are held accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Council Mr.

Green.

I do have a question for um, it's actually for CPD probably, or maybe a city attorney related to your testimony.

Um and it that is in relation to so I do know that it is becoming common that individuals will be afraid to show up for their normal court cases at um at the court, as I would be as well.

Um then the result of that is that the judges are sort of put in a position where they have to issue a bench warrant.

You mentioned that the only time that we would be assisting law enforcement is in related to warrants.

I'm imagining that's warrants for like a violent crime of some sort, but like in a situation like that, is a is that a point where CPD is intervening or yeah, we have a duty, um, a legal duty to um you know uh act on any uh legitimate warrant that we can verify.

Um and in cases where you have said that we are enforcing those warrants, are those typically are those actions typically initiated by CPD as a result of the court reaching out to us, or is this a situation where Border Patrol and Customs Enforcement is reaching out to us proactively watching these warrants?

Um and then we're just what is that?

What is that collaboration look like, I guess?

Yeah, so customs and border patrol and and ICE does not reach out to us for warrant enforcement.

They can obviously pick and choose which warrants they want to uh enforce.

Uh generally it's us coming into contact and uh and either a traffic stop or a criminal or responding to a call for service, and we we run somebody's you know uh information and it pops up that they have a warrant.

The court doesn't reach out to us either when somebody's issued a bench warrant.

Um we generally sometimes these go unnoticed for 10, 20 years uh or longer because there's no notification CPD.

So generally um it's just we come across that individual and have a reason to run their information because they are a suspect in the domestic violence, for instance, and we're gonna run them and say, Oh, you have a bench warrant for an unpaid traffic ticket from five years ago, and then we have a duty to to make an arrest on that.

Okay, okay.

And just as a point of clarification, and I with the two lawyers, I got three lawyers up here.

Okay, so city attorney.

The I mean, if we want to solve that problem, it's not on CPD, it would then go back to the court.

Is that is that uh uh judgment call on for judges that issuing that warrant?

Is that what does that process look like?

Just because I'm I'm I'm thinking people probably have that question.

So uh judicial officers do have some discretion in determining how to address um a failure to appear of an individual who's been summonsed to court.

Um oftentimes in a criminal case, a warrant will be issued for an individual's arrest for failure to appear in court, uh, mainly because um the the case cannot move forward when that individual fails to appear.

There might be a victim who's been harmed by that particular offense, and oftentimes the prosecution in those circumstances will be advocating for that warrant to issue because we'd also don't always know why an individual's not there.

We just know that we cannot pursue the case.

The court will then take that into consideration and make a determination as to whether or not they're able to issue a summons to get that individual to come into court to continue the case, maybe at the request of their defense attorney if they have knowledge about why that individual has failed to appear or to issue a warrant for that individual's arrest.

Once that warrant is issued, um, assistant chief convuse is absolutely correct.

If a law enforcement officer comes into contact with that individual, what that warrant literally does is advise any law enforcement officer that they are to take that individual into custody if they are within the jurisdiction of the court, which CPD would be.

So that officer at that point would need to detain that individual.

Um at that after that, uh there's a possibility of posting of bond and things along those lines.

But ultimately, yes, there is some initial discretion with the court, they're the ones that are issuing the warrant.

Um, and I know that our public defenders collective is gonna come up and they can probably answer this.

We had a conversation with the public defender's office as well.

There's a there's a number of things.

I think this is the next generation of like know your rights for folks to also understand that they can preemptively call so they don't have to appear in court, that they can say, depending upon what the issue is, that they can call and say, These are my circumstances, I can impair a court, and then they can work with the public defender's office to then find different options.

I don't want to steal your thunder, but I'm just showing what I know.

Um thank you.

Does that answer questions?

Yeah, I just uh a point of notation here too.

There may not necessarily be a situation where police are proactively picking people up, but there are systems that work interchangeably with the court system, particularly the housing system.

If you have a warrant black, it is it is literally impossible for you to receive housing resources sometimes.

It will do a warrant check.

Oftentimes our office had discretion to be able to advocate for people who were unhoused trying to get housing.

So again, I think it is very important for our public defenders to provide that information because I know that it is inappropriate for the city attorney's office to advise our citizens.

However, um, I do think that as we talk about what these barriers, what a bench warrant, um, what type of barrier that can be.

Um, we talk about it comprehensively and try to make sure that folks have all of the information that they need to be able to work through this time.

Perfect.

Ms.

Brown, welcome back to council.

Uh so after Dania, it is uh Siddarshan.

Um thank you, council members for the opportunity to testify here tonight.

My name is Elizabeth Brown.

I am the president and CEO of YWCA Columbus.

And we are in strong support of the ordinance package under consideration because it aligns directly with our mission of eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.

As a provider of social services in Columbus and Franklin County, we know firsthand the importance of a diverse community where everyone has access to opportunity and belonging.

Full stop.

Across our homelessness, housing, education, and leadership programs, we see every day the extraordinary contributions immigrants make to our city.

We also see the fear and instability that harmful enforcement tactics create.

We proudly stand in solidarity with our immigrant clients and neighbors, which is why we are here tonight.

But first, it is critical to acknowledge that the tactics of U.S.

immigration and customs enforcement ICE are not new or isolated.

Since its creation as a federal agency responsible for immigration enforcement, ICE has generated profound harm, indiscriminate workplace raids, the separation of parents from children, prolonged detention, and uneven application of our laws have raised chronic, persistent equity and due process concerns.

These practices have devastated families, destabilized neighborhoods, inflicted lasting trauma, and led to the loss of life for decades.

I want to be clear about that.

And for much of that time, a lot of the reason, some of the pipeline to ICE had to do with local law enforcement.

I would encourage members of this council to stay very close to the law enforcement body that is under your jurisdiction in terms of how they do traffic stops, whether or not they do ice holds, maybe advocate with the county sheriff about the same, and how they are defining low-level criminal violations that would cause them to report an immigrant to ICE.

Please keep that conversation ongoing and not just starting here tonight.

So now we are in this burning national debate about the need to change, and that debate matters to why do we see at Columbus because eliminating racism and advancing justice requires us to respond when systems disproportionately harm immigrant communities and communities of color.

The ordinance package you have crafted before you takes thoughtful community-centered steps to affirm safety, dignity, and trust.

It makes clear that spaces in Columbus are places of belonging, not staging grounds for fear.

It protects children so that schools and daycares remain environments of learning and not suffering.

Taken together, these measures embody YWCA's conviction that justice is indivisible and that every person, regardless of background, deserves to live with dignity, hope, and security.

Ten more seconds.

I want to add that history will judge how we responded in this moment.

I believe deeply that the courage of impacted communities, the voices raised in our streets, and policies like the ones you are considering will reflect the best of who we are as a city and as a people, and ultimately will be the forces that write history.

Thank you very much.

So I thank you for never wavering from the mission of the YWCA.

It's critical and it's important.

And thank you for always speaking truths to power.

I also want to just acknowledge that the Franklin County Sheriff is we did invite them here tonight.

They are not here.

So I would say we, although we had a conversation with them, uh, this is where advocacy would again come into play from our community, uh, both with our Franklin County commissioners, but certainly they are directed by the state.

And so if folks have not been paying attention to the harmful policies coming out of the state house, this is part of the challenge.

We can have a conversation with CPD, we cannot have a conversation with we can have a conversation with the sheriff's office.

We can direct them to do things, we cannot force them to, or or or ask them to.

We have it is it is just as good as again the voice of the people.

So I would just put that out there because I think there are probably some practices that they would want to brush, we would want them to brush up on.

So I appreciate your point and thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you very much, Council members.

Dania and then Sidarshin, you're after Dania, and then um Riverview.

Um good evening, Council members.

My name is Dania Hammond, and I come before you as a representative of the Franklin County Public Defender Collective, Local 6363 to strongly urge you to pass legislation to limit illegal and unconstitutional actions by ICE in our community.

Our union is comprised of nearly 100 attorneys who practice law daily in the Franklin County Municipal Court as well as Franklin County Court of Common Pleas and the Adult Criminal Division and the Domestic Relations and Juvenile Branch.

I know you said earlier that there's not much that you can maybe do in regards to the municipal court, but I do think it's important to explain to you guys what's happening there on the daily.

Many of us have seen firsthand how ICE's presence in the courthouse causes unnecessary trauma and fear amongst our community, and we strongly urge you to pass a resolution that addresses the safety of all our community members who live and work in the city of Columbus.

Last June, most of Columbus watched local news videos and social media posts showcasing the ICE agents' arrest and detention of Leonardo Fausto as he left the Franklin County Municipal Courtroom.

Or perhaps residents first became aware of ICE's presence in the municipal courthouse two weeks ago.

But we are here to tell you that this is a regular occurrence.

Since this time last year, ICE agents have maintained a visible presence in the courthouse, often lurking near the exits of the building or blocking exits on the upper level floors where the courtrooms are located.

They're almost always in plain close, and in many instances, individuals taken before their attorney has been informed and before the case has been heard.

It is important to note that most, if not all, of these arrests have been civil enforcement actions.

For those of you who may not know, that is when ICE kidnaps individuals on the basis of a civil warrant, not a judicially signed warrant.

The FCPD collective acknowledges that allowing ICE to maintain a prominent and intimidating presence within city limits and thus the courthouse constitutes a significant interference with due process rights and equal access to the justice system.

Defendants' due process rights are infringed when they don't have fair and equal access to the courthouse due to their fear of being kidnapped by ICE agents, especially when their case is often left unresolved due to their detention, which will also lead to a warrant being issued for failure to appear.

They are never given the chance to fight their case or have their day in court, and their presumption of innocence is stripped away.

Victims never get the opportunity to see the case resolved, and some non-U.S.

citizen victims and witnesses are also scared to come to court due to ICE's presence.

It's clear that ICE civil enforcement actions in the courthouse have a direct negative impact on the protection of constitutional due process rights, and we are not alone in this belief.

The Franklin County Court of Common Please adopted its own local rules restricting civil immigration enforcement actions within the courthouse, and we agree with the judicial branch of common please and applaud its bravery in standing up for the rights of the public.

And to the members of the public who are listening, we want you to know that we are fighting and advocating for your rights every single day, regardless of your immigration status.

Too often you've only seen one narrative, and we want you, the public, to know that we are defending you.

We're defending your due process rights that are afforded to all persons by the U.S.

Constitution and to ensure that everyone has equal access to the justice system.

And to the members of the council tonight, we have seen firsthand how ICE enters our municipal courthouse and kidnaps individuals without notice and access to counsel, disrupting access to justice for victims and defendants alike, and it serves due process and just finality of criminal cases.

If this is what is had has been happening inside the courthouse, imagine what will continue to happen in the community outside the eyes and ears of where the justice system is located.

We ask that you adopt proposed resolutions that will create a safer and more just environment for old people within Columbus.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I want to be clear when we say we don't have that direct direct jurisdiction over the courthouse, but I I appreciate the advocacy for a resolution, and I think that's something that we can certainly consider in the future.

Do my colleagues have any comments?

Yeah, I just have one question for you.

As has there been anything put in place or communication that has been given to you by the court on how to report observations of ICE in the courthouse.

What I what I don't want there to be is a strong disconnect between where the what how many observations of ICE have been seen in the court by the court versus by the community.

And I want to make sure that there is consistent communication back and forth between the court and the folks who are seeing this activity.

Oftentimes we are not made aware of ISIS presence until our clients are actively being taken by ICE outside of the courtrooms.

Okay.

And I do just want to add in clarification to something that was mentioned earlier.

Our clients who are actively in ICE custody, the city prosecutor's office does ask for warrants for their failure to appear despite knowing exactly where they are and that they're actively in ICE custody.

That's been something we've been addressing in the courtrooms, but I did want to clarify that.

No, I appreciate that.

And I think one thing we've also been trying to do is in these conversations is to also educate ourselves because there's things that we will hear, and then there's things that will sometimes will stories that are published or things that are out there.

And so we've tried to ask, like what are the processes?

So we should continue to have this conversation because I think in the places where we can apply pressure, we will always do that.

In the places where we can have conversations or if there's alternatives to the things that we can do if we can't put in policy or legislation, we will do that.

So thank you for being here tonight.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

I do have a question for the city attorney really fast related to that, because I I have heard the same thing as well.

You know, I was speaking with someone uh at the at the court who you know, where I was like, is there an option not to issue these warrants?

Can we just extend the case out, give an extension?

And the information that I received was that they were instructed by the city attorney's office to issue warrants in those cases.

And I just wonder if you can clarify it or if that was a previous policy, you know, with what level of offenses would that have applied to, and if it was maybe a previous policy, is it something you're reconsidering?

And I would make the same plea to you.

Is there an option in those cases to extend those cases rather than issuing a warrant?

Thank you, Councilmember Green.

Um, so I I previously served under um city attorney Pfeiffer as the chief prosecutor in the County Municipal Court at that particular point in time.

So I can talk to my specific past experiences.

Obviously, in my current role, I don't serve in that particular capacity.

However, at that point in time, we had a number of difficult situations that would come before us when he had an individual who is alleged to be in ICE custody or who was who we knew to be in ICE custody.

And uh in terms of whether or not it's alleged or known to be, that is not often clear at that particular moment in time.

Um we will often be advised that individual is believed to have been taken.

Um, but we would need to know whether or not in fact they definitively were is just one point to put on it.

But there are speci certainly specific instances where it's it's there are reasons why a prosecutor would ask that a warrant be issued for that particular individual's arrest.

An example would be when they're alleged to have committed an act of domestic violence.

Um we have a victim that's before us, that victim desires to see the individual brought to justice.

Um, if we issue a warrant for their arrest, if they do come into contact with the division of police, that individual will need to be brought to the court.

We might have concerns for the victim's safety.

We might have concerns for the public's safety.

There are some individuals who have multiple violations of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Certainly not every immigrant is in that particular situation, not every individual who has issues with immigrations and customs is in that particular issue situation, but there are individuals who are.

And the city prosecutor has to weigh those particular incidences and circumstances and make decisions that are in the best interest of the public at large and not of one particular individual.

Could there other there are in terms of the question?

I'm sorry, in terms of the question of whether or not it could be extended.

So the city prosecutor doesn't have the authority one way or the other to quote unquote extend a case.

There are speedy trial requirements on every given criminal case.

Um if the defense is able to waive those speedy trial requirements, then a conversation can be had.

But if those speedy trial requirements are continuing, then this prosecutor cannot simply extend the speedy trial time.

Um ultimately the decision about whether or not to grant any kind of a continuance is the court's decision.

The prosecutor will make arguments based upon the specific facts and circumstances before them of that particular case.

I can't speak to whether or not there's a specific policy at this particular moment, only because I'm not currently in the prosecutor division, but certainly something I can take back to the city attorney.

Well, and I think I would advocate now that I mean certainly violent offenders.

I will say that my entrance into this discussion came when there was a misinterpreted domestic dispute.

A mom that had a child, has two children as young as my son are, was um ended up being arrested and detained and shipped off to Butler County before a lawyer could be contacted.

And the it ended up being a huge misunderstanding.

An interpreter wasn't provided, everything escalated very quickly.

And I don't even know she could still be here, you know, there to this day.

Um and you know, so when we're talking about, you know, blanket guidance or blanket requests for certain types of offenses, I at a minimum would argue that there must be some sort of review process by you know on a case by case basis through the um city attorney's office, you know, so that we don't have situations, you know, where we have everyone walks into their jobs with their own set of um you know biases and worldviews that influences the decisions and the actions that they take, right?

So when we're talking about people powered jobs like law enforcement or you know, we're talking about um you know people in the community who are making who observe something and are making placing a call for a situation that they might not understand, you know.

I I just think we need to be very intentional in this moment because you've got a whole group of people who just automatically assume that anyone who is not born on this, you know, on United States of America land is a rapist or a criminal of some sort.

And and so if we are going to you know uphold our values, then I think we need to be intentional about doing our due diligence when we're issuing guidance like that or we're making requests like that where we are reviewing cases where we have, you know, or it's not just a blanket sort of general recommendation for a warrant based on a certain type of charge.

Can I just briefly add something?

Yes, one thing I do want to mention, and I I want to just honor the fact that we have um some of our Muslim brothers and sisters who are here and are observing Ramadan, and I want if I could ask the privilege of our next two speakers if we could bump some people up just so that we can get them out of here, um, if that would be okay with you.

But yes, thank you.

I just want to clarify um as someone who is actively working in the courthouse every single day and does have a hand on some of these cases, we do actively provide the city attorney's office with verification that our clients were taken directly from the jail's custody to ISIS custody.

That is always a given when we are discussing these specific issues.

And just as a brief reminder to everyone who's listening, non-citizens are also afforded the presumption of innocence as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Darshan, are you okay if we have a speaker go before you?

Thank you so much.

Um, first of all, I I want to acknowledge um, I think there are many of our partners that we need to have continued conversations with about how they change policies and why and ask these questions.

And I think that this hearing tonight is an example of that of us continuing to have those conversations and continuing to understand going back to where is the breakdown, where is the challenge, where are the policy changes that we need to ensure because you know, we know that when you are in the Franklin County jail, they're preemptively calling ice, right?

That is a policy change that we would like them to make.

So these are the kinds of questions and kind of kinds of conversations we need to continue to have.

I think folks are seeing us have this in the public, but these are the conversations that we have been having with all of our partners about that continued change.

So I'm glad that we were able to have that here so folks could start to see that and could start to then ask questions for themselves and understand how the process works so that as you're advocating, you know what where the right places to apply that pressure and where the right places for that advocacy.

So um so we are going to uh next go to Anisa Laban.

And then after Anisa um Dorothy Hassan.

And then Khalid, are you is Khalid here to Rani?

I don't think I see him.

Okay.

Ramadan Mubarakan, thank you very much.

And I sincerely want to thank Emilia and the gentlemen who were called for your patience and understanding.

Thank you.

Um, good evening, Council President.

Um Pro Tem Rob Dorns, um, Councilmember Lourdes Brazo de Padilla and honorable members of Columbus City Council.

It is great to be back.

My name is Anissa Liban, and today I am here as a proud member of our helpers board of directors.

I'll allow my amazing colleague Dorothy expand more on what we would like you to know about this important work that we're doing, but I wanted to start off by saying I absolutely am supportive of this legislative package.

I think it's about time that something is done that's tangible.

Um with that being said, I again I want to thank you for proposing legislation that aims to better support and protect immigrant neighbors here in Columbus.

I really just want to share a story.

A few weeks before our Thanksgiving pop-up event last year, ICE rammed the vehicle a family was traveling in with two children inside.

Officers first forcibly removed the children's mother and detained her, taking her to Butler County jail.

Her partner, whom we will call Joshua, was left alone with two minor children despite not having legal custody.

In the days and weeks that followed, Joshua was paralyzed by fear.

He stopped going to work, the usual, was too afraid to send the children back to school, and feared leaving his apartment.

Neighbors harassed him, and he really felt pushed away, unsafe and underserved in Columbus, unsure where to turn to or who he could ask for help to let the children and himself survive.

Thankfully, he turned to our helpers.

When he arrived at our our helpers community free store at Elevate Northland, he was, of course, frantic and emotionally exhausted.

The 10-year-old boy served as the family's interpreter, translating for Joshua and his 16-year-old sister, who is deaf and communicates in sign language.

In the midst of the fear and instability, a child carried the weight of an adult conversation and legal uncertainty.

Despite everything, both children showed remarkable resilience.

Joshua showed us videos and photos of a successful construction business that he had built and really liquidated all that he had earned, believing that he was investing in safety and opportunity.

And we were able to provide him immediate food, toys, and household supplies that day and connect Joshua with Abel, advocates for basic basic legal equity for a legal referral for the detained mother.

And these supports filled the critical gaps that that family was facing in that crisis.

But as weeks passed, the family fell behind on rent, left their apartment to avoid eviction, and relocated to Oklahoma with acquaintances for survival.

Why am I sharing all this?

I believe that this story highlights the gaps in our community.

Legal representation is critical, and we're really deeply grateful for our legal partners who fight this work in court.

But we really believe that our helpers, we are filling a gap that many of our amazing partners in legal partners aren't able to fill fill.

And so we provided that necessary emergency response to help this family during crisis, but we recognize that this support that we're doing through corn through our helpers, it's not enough.

And so what we want to do is ask this body humbly, pass the legislation, but make sure that you're also investing in the nonprofits that are filling that emergency response because we can talk policy all day, but if we're not meeting the basic needs of these immigrant families, not much is going to be done to help them thrive.

Thank you.

Anissa, before you leave, I I know that there are several legal organizations that are doing legal work, but they're also restricted by whatever the requirements are with regard to grant dollars and what they can and what they can't do.

What I understand is there is a gap in kind of private attorneys that would be able to literally fill in the gap, start to finish, get to folks before maybe they are detained or be a number to call before they are getting to detained or while you know they are going through that process.

Is this the kind of work that our helpers is doing?

Are you kind of absolutely making those referrals in those connections?

Um, but even in those instances, I'll say that um a lot of we're blessed to have a lot of nonprofits that have those attorneys.

Um, and we have access to a few private attorneys.

We're working with them to ensure that we're supporting the right families and prioritizing those needs.

Um, but um I'll also allow Dorothy to kind of expand and address that question.

Thank you.

Thank you, Anisa.

Thank you for your continued um advocacy.

Thank you for welcome back home.

Thank you for being here.

So after Dorothy Sadarshin, you're thank you.

Thank you for your patience.

Good evening, esteemed uh honorable council members.

And it's full circle to be back here because the last time I was here, I was here in support of the commission that has presented these uh this legislative package.

So thank you for allowing us back.

Uh my name is Dorothy Hasan, and I have the privilege and responsibility of serving as CEO of our helpers.

And let me begin to read off of this wonderful script here and decide when I will stop.

Months before uh the December 2025 surge, which was called uh Operation Buckeye by U.S.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ohio uh our helpers was building infrastructure to support immigrant families across Columbus.

Our early stance on the rights of our neighbors has never wavered, even though our staff and funding has been left to bear the consequences.

In November of 2024, we launched Central Ohio Rapid Response Network, which we affectionately call Corn, a coalition of interfaith clergy members, educators, attorneys, elected officials, and grassroots organizations.

Since January of 2025, Corn has hosted 57 coordination meetings to share national and regional immigration updates, verify information, and mobilize coordinated community response.

We've talked about the fear that was in the hearts of many families.

And through this infrastructure and network that we built, we were able to ask our network members, including uh immigration lawyers, what their advice was to families when Operation Buckeye started, and they told us that their advice was for families to stay home.

We were at a meeting with Councilwoman uh Lourdes, who said the best advice right now is to stay home, and we knew that we were in a position to keep families fed when they were staying home.

With that, over winter break, we were able to use the manpower of more than 100 of 344 registered volunteers, and we were able to deliver 685 boxes of dry food produce and household supplies to the doors of the most targeted families in the region across 32 zip codes.

Nearly 332 families received grocery deliveries with essential supplies and reassurance during one of the most destabilizing times our immigrant community has experienced in Columbus.

We were thankful for the helping hands of President Hardin, who came and packed boxes with us along with Councilwoman Lourdes, who also, along with packing boxes, was able to steer a huge donation to the effort.

Volunteers mobilized and protected people's right to worship also in safety by patrolling and providing safety and targeted mosques at targeted mosques and churches.

We led community-wide training, equipping people with the knowledge that they needed to protect their rights and those of the targeted friends, students, and neighbors.

Uh, to answer your question, Councilwoman Ross.

Um, while there are organizations that have been able to direct individuals to legal representation, our helpers has been able to fill in the gap with everything else that happens when a family is in fear of their of their real existence.

So we've been able to provide food, legal referrals.

We got a call last week from a family in Athens who was supporting a family here in Columbus and said that they that that man had bought that family a washer and dryer a year ago.

That dryer now needed repair, and he needed a referral because he was no he no longer thought it was a smart decision to just let anybody in that family's house.

And he needed an organization who got it.

Thank you, Dr.

Hasen.

And I I just also I just also we got lots of our helper stands in the audience today.

I also want to hear too.

I'm a standard absolutely, absolutely.

I was gonna say, I think one of the things I also appreciated about our helpers is that we had during that time we had lots of organizations, especially smaller grassroots organizations that were doing home deliveries, and we were able to connect them to our helpers because while they were struggling to get food and other things, we were able to get them.

We had conversations about now we have Latinos on the list, and we're not giving them the food that they want.

We were able to reach out to a grocery store that then offered donations.

So I think that um I I just I so deeply believe in the in the infrastructure that you have built and the ways that we can come together as a community, and I think this is the best example of that, and ensuring that we're meeting people where they are.

So if it's not safe for you to leave, bellies are still getting fed, that we have our other organizations that are making sure that you have a roof over your head, that bills are getting paid, and so this is what community really looks like, and this is the everyday work that these organizations have been doing, and that with our helpers.

And so I think that just shows the generosity and the spirit of who Columbus really is, no matter what the haters say, no matter what the naysayers say, you all have shown who we really are.

So thank you.

Thank you for the support.

Siddharshan, thank you so much for your patience.

Uh representing the Bhutanese community of Central Ohio, then uh Amelia from uh Riverview, and then Josue Vicente and uh Sarah Demio from Ohio Hispanic Coalition.

The floor is yours, sir.

Thank you.

Um, dear council president Senan Harden members of this chamber and council women, Barroso de Padilla.

Uh good evening.

My name is Sudarshan Pekarilla.

I'm the executive director of Bhutanese Committee of Central Ohio.

Thank you for this opportunity to share my testimony today as a representative of Central Ohio's immigrant and refugee communities.

I am myself a former refugee and resettled in the United States.

And uh it's an honor to uh be here, um, Councilmember uh Barroso de Pedilla that uh um uh I am testifying in favor of the proposed changes regarding the federal civil immigration enforcement.

Uh first of all, I believe this is a task of what most important that the city needs to address.

I am so glad uh the council member Barroso de Padilla has taken this initiative as he has championed many uh such efforts to address matter concerning immigrants and refugees uh prior as well.

And uh as you know, I've been running a nonprofit organization for the last 10 years that directly works with immigrants and refugees every day.

This community, which is the backbone of our local economy, has helped sustain and grow Central Ohio's economy over last decades with dedications, work commitment and resilience to raise families in a safe place.

But we are all aware the recent ICE activities.

I wanted to give you example that 49 members of my community have been deported to Bhutan and a country that does not recognize us.

We actually don't have a country to go back, and within 24 hours, Bhutan has deported them out of the country.

So that's the condition, and even today, many more members of the Bhutanese uh uh uh are being deported to Bhutan that does not recognize them.

And so it's very important that at this time at the city level, we need to uh ensure that people have uh the legal representations, people have uh someone to speak on their behalf, and they are protected, they are not further prosecuted when they are thrown into a country that does not recognize them.

And so also I wanted to add this the members of this great chamber are all aware uh of the populations that uh uh you know sustain the local economy.

You are also aware of the culture by Rensi, this community ads.

You are also aware of the fact that the vast majority of these community members are tax paying and law-abiding.

However, when it comes to uh safety support and protections, they are often at the bottom of the list in terms of priority.

Uh we have lived through decades of postponed services and uh delayed access to services that the general public benefits from.

And no one has made an issue uh but uh honorable members because we are the community that are humble and grateful for the opportunity to work and raise a family.

However, things have changed.

I know I have 10 more seconds.

However, things have changed recently because we are a resettled refugee population that has been evicted just 35 years ago.

And what we are seeing now right now in the streets of the United States is what I have experienced in the 10-year-old back in Bhutan.

And so I see the same pattern repeating, initially targeting so-called criminals and then going into the community and targeting everybody else based on who we were at the time.

We were minorities living in Bhutan, we were Hindus in a majority Buddhist country.

And I see the pattern repeating here, and it scares us.

And so I wanted to urge the council to really take meaningful actions and support as best as possible because we don't want to relive the history that we just leave.

With that, I'm out of my time, but uh really I wanted to thank uh Councilwoman Barroso de Pedia for your leadership and for standing up for the rights of immigrants and refugees in central Ohio.

I'd also like to thank the uh honorable members of uh this chamber for your effort in supporting uh this uh legislation.

Um last not least, uh I also wanted to thank Jessica Ambarusa and Andrea for your work and commitment that you put together and always been a support.

Also, I wanted to thank my staff, Boksa and Mani who are standing here, because it's an everyday challenge for us to even to come to work.

And when we see someone sus unsuspected or unsuspected person in our door, sometimes we have to lock our door to determine if we are safe to go outside or not ourselves.

So this is a critical moment.

We ordered you, we request you, please stand up, please speak for us.

Thank you.

Siddarshan, thank you so much.

I think as we've seen the Bhutanese community grow and understanding the needs of the community.

I think people come here because they see their people here and because people invite them and they say we have a community here, and you are always welcome here, right?

And we want to ensure that folks feel that safety.

And I think this is the challenge is that when we don't acknowledge where folks are coming from, we don't acknowledge that sometimes there is no place to go back to, or that your own, you have no citizenship, you have no land that is going to recognize you that we are essentially throwing people out on the street, and that is not what America was built on.

So thank you for being here today.

Thank you for your advocacy, and thank you for continuing to teach us and be the voice of uh of our people.

Thank you.

So, Emilia, then Josue, and Sarah from Ohio Hispanic Coalition, Mark from Hakonet.

I'm just using first names because we're all friends here.

Thank you so much.

Um, my name is Emilia Sheely.

I'm here as the executive director of Riverview International Center, and also here in support of the proposed legislation.

Um, the RIC, as we call ourselves, is a community-based organization where immigrants are welcomed, empowered to build their lives in Columbus.

We do this through programs designed to meet their evolving needs like job placement, education for all ages, and connection to resources, and most importantly to relationships.

In 2025, we served more than 2,000 individuals from 60 countries.

Among them were people of varying statuses and families of mixed status.

Among them were more than 50 families from Haiti with temporary protected status, many families with active active asylum cases, and families who came through the diversity visa program who are now desperate to get their green card in hand in case they're stopped by ice.

Um, the RIC's response to this terror unleashed on our community is um to continue to be a welcoming and empowering place for immigrants.

And that sounds um kind of simple, kind of basic, but we refuse to not offer our empathy, our support, and our reassurance.

We are providing uh resources, food, diapers, and material support.

We continue to help hundreds of Columbus residents navigate employment in central Ohio.

We can only do this because residents of the city have stepped up, both as volunteers and as donors.

Thanks to them, we've retained every staff member on our team and grown our programming through a very challenging time.

Um it thrills me that the City of Columbus, through this ordinance aims to stand together and draw a line.

Um ICE ever approach schools.

Um, my kids say no as CCS students, and I, as a parent and an executive director, say um I hope that we can uh pass what's been proposed here.

Um I welcome any legislation that restricts immigration enforcement to the lawful, but also the humane.

Um I also welcome any collaboration or investment from the city council from the city of Columbus in the RIC's work to support and protect more than 2,000 of our city's residents.

So thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening, and I'm giving you back 48 seconds.

First of all, thank you for your kindness and letting folks go before you.

Thank you for um always uh thank you for your partnership and for the folks that you serve.

I mean, I think that uh, you know, the RIC is one of those testaments of how the community supports community, and um, you've shown that time and time again.

And um, we do want to make an investment in your work, and we should talk about what that looks like.

But thank you for always answering my call when we are uh reaching out and and serving residents and for all the work that you do at the RIC.

So thank you so much.

Absolutely.

So uh Ohio Hispanic Coalition, Hakonet, and then Jonah Hilario.

Perfect.

All right.

Good evening.

Councilmember Barroso de Padilla, members of council.

My name is Sarah DeMeo.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Ohio Hispanic Coalition, Ohio's only Latino-led statewide multi-service nonprofit with 36 years of service to our Latino immigrant families across Central Ohio.

I want to be very clear today.

This is not a theoretical debate.

The policies before you uh today are about whether Latino families in Columbus are safe right now.

Today, tomorrow, and next week.

The families we serve are already changing their behavior out of fear.

Parents are keeping children home.

Families are avoiding parks, schools, and city buildings.

Victims are not reporting domestic violence.

And students are afraid to go to school, not knowing if their dad will be home when they return.

Statistically, we saw our very identity, being Latino is being persecuted.

The proposed city codes change changes are necessary and they're overdue.

First, Columbus must prohibit ICE from using the public spaces, a staging grounds for civic uh for civil immigration enforcement without city approval or a judicial warrant.

When ICE uses parks, parking lots, or city control property this way, those spaces immediately are unsafe.

Public trust is broken, and the city becomes complicit in harm it did not authorize and cannot control.

Second, the council must act to protect schools and child care centers from those vigilante harassments or so-called journalism.

No child should be watched, filmed, or targeted because of their parents' assumed immigration status.

No parents should fear picking up their child.

Misdemeanor penalties for trespass or intimidation are not extreme.

They're minimum necessarily to protect our children.

We also do demand uh the strong safeguards that require city council approval for any 287G agreements that prohibit city employees and we like uh vendors as well from holding outside employment or contracts with ICE and advance a resolution that is supported and brought forward by the Commission of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, requiring ICE to meet the same identification and training standards expected of CPD when operating in Columbus, and we do ask that members of Congress support similar legislation.

Finally, Columbus must draw a firm line against immigration detention facilities within city limits, uh except for publicly owned uh facilities that subject full public oversight detention centers do harm families, destabilize neighborhoods, and contradict the city's stated values.

When Latino and immigrant residents are unsafe, Columbus is unsafe.

Public safety does not exist without trust.

Economic stability does not exist without participation.

And democracy does not exist when the entire community lives in fear.

Council, this is your responsibility.

We urge you to act decisively, without delay, and to pass these measures in full.

Thank you.

I also want to ensure that we acknowledge one of our commissioners from the Commission on Immigrant Refugee Affairs.

Thank you for being here.

I mean, it is without a doubt.

Uh unfortunately, immigration enforcement and Latinos have a long, long, long history, and we are disproportionately targeted, um, probably because they creeped up on what was once Mexico and never have gotten over it, but I digress.

Um Thank you for your advocacy.

Thank you for the way that you show up for communities.

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Council.

While HACONET is making their way up, Councilmember Green, I do want to ensure that we circle back to our city attorney's office because we did get a point of clarification on our last conversation, but we had to move forward because of folks who were in the audience.

So city attorney, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Councilmember Prosa DePedia.

I was I was able to connect with uh city attorney Klein about the question that was asked about whether or not the city prosecutor's office has a blanket policy.

We do not.

So the policy within the city attorney's office prosecutor division is they make a decision based upon the specific case that's before them.

Um traffic cases, low-level offenses, uh, those cases get dismissed for individuals that we have verified or in ICE custody.

Offenses of violence and drunk driving cases, similar to the policy that was in place when I was there previously, are cases where warrants are asked for failure to appear so that we can pursue those prosecutions in order to protect public safety.

I know I think that's what I'm asking though, is you know, you just listed specific blanket offenses, you know, certain types of offenses, not all offenses, but what I'm asking is if there's an allegation of a crime, are we are we reviewing the case in detail, making sure that like, hey, this is something that 100% we believe that we have can prove beyond a reasonable doubt is absolutely um the case, and we're planning on taking this to trial if need be and request a warrant, or are we just saying if you have committed an act of domestic violence or blah blah blah, you know, whatever it is, we're asking for the warrant to be issued.

So just to be clear, a prosecutor has rules of professional conduct that must be followed, that they're only going to pursue cases that they believe that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, of course, those things can happen.

Um, witnesses can fail to appear, evidence can go stale, um, things cannot proceed the way that we like, but it would be unethical for us to pursue it if unless we felt we had probable cause to believe a crime had been committed.

I think what I'm what I am trying to get at, and again, this is I'm I only have I have one specific example that I'm citing, and you guys deal with thousands of cases a day, so I recognize that we're working with a small sample, but I can definitively tell you that it is that I believe it to be the perspective of the court that it's like any time someone walks through the door that that has uh domestic violence charge, we're supposed to issue a warrant um for them.

Uh and that it has been sort of blanket requested, you know.

So I'm not saying that like if you were like I recognize that.

I think that there are two systems are not talking to one another, maybe, or you know, I I just think that these things should be on a case-by-case basis.

There needs to be some sort of review.

You know, I recognize that if you're actively working a case, but at the time that a warrant is issued, you haven't even seen a case yet.

So how could we know?

So just for point of clarification, at the time where we would be requesting a warrant for failure to appear, it's because that case is already in court and has already been assigned to a prosecutor.

We're not talking about at the arraignment stage.

We're talking necessarily about something at either pretrial stage or jury trial stage, which means an individual would have before them the allegations.

Now, again, cases can fall apart, but they would be specifically looking at and would have been entrusted with prosecuting that particular case in front of them.

What I'm saying because of this uh yes, okay.

We're not understanding.

It's okay because of the speci specificity of this.

What I want to make sure, Councilmember Green, is that we can follow up on the question, and I think that we can come back to give some sort of clarification and some sort of close.

I just want to be respectful of we still have we still have a good portion of our list to get through, and I and it's already a late hour, and I want to make sure folks can get home to their families and to some dinners that they're probably gonna need to warm up.

So um, hello, you're the floor is yours, my friends.

Thank you.

I also want to acknowledge one of our other commissioners who is here this evening.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members and members of the community.

My name is Mark Fickier.

I am the executive director of the Haitian Community Network, and standing with me is uh uh social services uh director and a member of the commission.

Um I'm here to speak in strong support of the proposed code um changes regarding federal civil immigration enforcement, the use of public spaces and protection for schools and child care facilities.

Uh Councilmember Badia, the Haitian um community is a 100% behind this uh this legislation.

These measures are not abstract policy debates.

They affect real families in our city, families who are trying to leave responsibly while navigating uncertainty in federal immigration policy.

Over the past months, I have spoken with parents, educators and workers who describe a growing of fear, a growing climate of fear and confusion.

At our organization, the Haitian community has found a safe space where they can come in and share their stories and their experiences.

One mother shared that she now voted school drop-offs with Wellative because she's afraid of going out.

Followed or film outside her child school.

She told me my daughter asked me why are people watching us, she thinks that she did something wrong.

That is the emotional toll these situations create for children.

And a child care provider describe individuals lingering outside their facilities with cameras.

The provider said we are trying to teach ABCs, not manage intimidation.

These are not isolated experiences.

There are symptoms of unclear boundaries between federal enforcement and the everyday spaces meant to serve residents.

This is especially urgent for members of the Asian community who are facing the uncertainty surrounding temporary protected status.

Many of these in the many of these individuals came to the US after devastating crisis in Haiti, earthquakes, political instability, and humanitarian emergencies.

And we're granted TPS precisely because returning was unsafe.

Today, as TPS protections faces challenging changes and possible termination, families are living in limbo.

They are working legally paying taxes, caring for children who are U.S.

citizens, and contributing to our local economy, yet they also fear that routine activities like taking a child to school or attending church could expose them to enforcement encounters.

When enforcement actions are related activities appear in your school parks and community facilities, the result is not improved safety.

It is withdrawal.

People stop reporting crimes, they stop seeking services, they stop participating in civil in civic life.

That makes everyone unsafe.

During this challenging time and since our conception, the Haitian community network has been the voice and the faces of the Haitian community here in Columbus.

This is not a political request.

This is a human one.

This is also important to grant this conversation in facts.

Haitian temporary protected status holders are not burdened on our communities.

They are measurable economic engine.

There are roughly 330,000 Haitian TPS oldest in the United States.

About 200,000 are already active in the U.S.

workforce.

These workers generate an estimated of 5.9 billion dollars in economic activities every year in the United States.

In cities across the country, including right here in Columbus, Ohio, Haitians TPS holders are helping stabilize local economies.

One analysis estimates that their presence contributes tens of millions of dollars to mid-sized cities such as Columbus alone.

Hospital manufacturing facilities, hospitality businesses, and services providers rely on these workers.

In many regions, they are described as overwhelmingly employed and deeply embedded in local economies.

Abrupt disruption of this population does not just affect immigrant families.

It risks destabilization of everyone, local workforces, increasing costs for businesses, and weakening economic growth in the communities that depend on them.

This is why thoughtful local Godwells matters.

While immigration policy is federal, the economic and human consequences are lived locally, in our schools, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods.

I urge you to adopt these code changes, to preserve trust in our institutions, to protect children and families, and to ensure that our city remains a place where safety and dignity are shared by everyone who lives here.

So we thank you for proposing this legislation, and thank you again for listening to us.

Thank you for being here tonight.

And I think, you know, understanding temporary protected status is important for our community because it is folks who are invited in to our country, folks who are given that protected status because it is unsafe for them from wherever they came from in the world.

And so to not have a path for citizenship, to not have a conversation, or if that is a process that we are going to say we're removing this, what then happens is not rooted in humanity and not rooted in people.

So thank you for your continued advocacy.

Thank you for being here this evening.

Thank you.

Andrew Hash after Jonah and then Leo.

Good evening.

Happy lunar new year and happy Shrew Tuesday to all who celebrate.

My name is Jonah Hilario.

I am an immigrant from the Philippines and co-director of Opal.

We are a grassroots community that organizes Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women, non-binary, and trans people in Ohio to advance social, racial and gender justice.

Our members include refugees, immigrants, workers, students, parents, and caregivers, and people in mixed status households whose lives are directly impacted by the unjust and increasingly violent immigration enforcement.

Since her founding in 2016, Opal has been working to build power through organizing and civic engagement within our AAPI communities in Ohio, including advocating for compassionate immigration reforms that would prioritize family unity and human dignity at the federal and state level.

In this current moment, our communities are living in fear and anxiety as we watch ICE terrorize neighborhoods and families.

AAPIs, no matter their immigration status, are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being racially profiled, harassed, and detained by ICE.

Asians account for about one out of every seven undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

More than 8,000 Asian immigrants have already been arrested since Trump returned to office.

But we have seen very little media coverage and low public awareness of the risks to our communities, partially due to fear, language barriers, and past experiences of political oppression.

Refugee communities, including the Bhutanese Nepali community that Mr.

Piacarel spoke about earlier, and Southeast Asian communities have already been targeted by ICE.

These refugees are at risk of being deported into life-threatening situations of statelessness or sent back to the same countries they fled decades ago because they were at risk of violence or death.

We are grateful for the proposals put forth by this the city council as a response to ICE's devastating occupation of Minneapolis and the unchecked violence that ICE and VHS are threatening to unleash in our city.

It is the city's moral responsibility to do all that it can to protect its most vulnerable residents because when ICE agents come into our communities to wage Trump's campaign of fear, it harms all of us.

We commend the council for proposing measures that would uphold its commitment to not using city resources for federal immigration enforcement.

We also agree with the need for collecting information about ICE encounters in the community.

The city must ensure that AAPI communities receive appropriate outreach and that language access needs are taken into consideration.

Many AAPI communities are already fearful of speaking up about their immigration issues, so our communities would need more assurance that reporting will not endanger them or their loved ones.

We further ask that the City of Columbus increase its funding for legal defense for immigrants by allocating more funding for the Columbus Families Together Fund.

Our pro bono immigration attorneys in Ohio are being stretched way beyond capacity to support clients in need.

Data shows that immigrants with access to legal representations were 10 times more likely to win their cases in immigration court than similarly situated people who didn't have lawyers.

Unlike the criminal justice system, the immigration justice system does not provide court-appointed attorneys for people who cannot afford one.

We also urge city council to completely cut ties with mass surveillance companies, specifically flock safety.

There are no regulations on how flock surveillance technology can be used by government officials, and flocks license plate reader data has ended up in the hands of ICE and CBP who use it for immigration operations.

Thank you for this opportunity to share our thoughts with the council.

I just want to reiterate that your AAPI constituents are hurting, and there is widespread fear, even if you are not hearing about this in the media.

We look forward to working with you to fight back against tyranny from the current administration and build a community Columbus that is safe and welcoming for all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jonathan.

Thank you for chef.

Thank you for always helping to educate us, for helping to make us more proximate to the community, for being a voice for the community.

We appreciate that.

I hear you about the I don't think that there's anybody who is providing legal services to the immigrant community that is not like stretched super thin.

I think even when we've had conversations with ABOL like I mean, I'm not sure that we have enough money to give ABLE to, you know, to meet all of the demand that they have, but I appreciate your advocacy and the keeping families together fund is certainly something that we will continue to invest in as a city.

So thank you.

Okay, Andrew Nash.

Great.

And then Leo and then Charles Abenathy.

Is Charles still here?

Yeah.

Oh, hey.

Okay, you're next, after Leo.

Hi, Andrew Hash, uh, concerned member of the community.

I'd like to open my time by asking the council as part of the legislation being proposed, uh, being discussed tonight to help release a Fourth Amendment workplace flyer that has the city seal on it.

This is extremely important and has been done in cities like Chicago.

This is critically important and is needed now because many business owners would be empowered to post it clearly if it had the city's seal on it.

So we ask that the city support these businesses so that they can protect themselves and keep open and express their rights.

Also wanted to thank you all for the proposed legislation and support the legislation.

Legislation needs to do more than institute protections for government buildings, hospitals, and schools, which should aim to prevent the lease or purchase of any additional ICE facilities.

That's warehouse or otherwise.

Immigration detention and holding facilities have significant lasting negative impacts on surrounding communities, including effects on public health, housing, infrastructure, and local services.

The council can help prevent this.

ICE has detained thousands of citizens and non-citizens without regard for due process or the rule of law, undermining key constituent protections afforded to all people, regardless of status.

If they build it, they will fill it.

With members of our community who are not criminals, the council needs to help prevent this in our city.

The tension conditions in U.S.

immigration custom enforcement facilities across the country are inhumane and fall short of our values as Americans.

The Board of Zoning can help prevent this, as was discussed earlier today.

Detained non-citizens are routinely denied medical care, access to counsel and family visitation while in immigration and custom enforcement custody.

The council can help prevent this today.

That's all I have for today.

I'll succeed my last minute.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

I think it's also very important.

We heard lots of folks who work in the community, and lots of folks who are aligned with organizations are a part of the community, and I think it's important for people to hear from everyone in the community.

And so I appreciate your advocacy today.

The city SEAL is something certainly that we have talked about as we talk about those signage that you saw in the uh proposed legislation.

That's something that we are thinking about.

That's something that we are trying to get in the hands of folks.

Actually, we we are having a gathering very soon of all of the organizations and leaders that are working in the community, and we're hoping to provide them with some of the resources just as soon as you know this week.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Leo, Charles Abenathy, and then Colleen O'Connell.

Colleen here.

Hi.

Great.

Uh good evening, members of City Council.

I'm Leo Almeida, Columbus resident and a naturalized citizen.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on this issue.

You've heard from several of our amazing organizations in the city of Columbus that work with immigrants and refugees.

So to avoid repeating what they've said, I'm actually going to share my personal story and perspective.

I was born in Brazil, and just a couple months before my fifth birthday, my mom and I moved to Ohio.

We moved here because my mom wanted me to have a quality public education.

Growing up as an immigrant wasn't easy.

I often felt othered, faced discrimination, and even had my life threatened as a teenager by someone who told me I should be shot because I wasn't a citizen.

All this happened despite the fact that my mom and I did everything, quote unquote, the right way.

And that no one could ever take that away from me.

Today that relief has turned to stress.

While my path to citizenship had many challenges, I was fortunate to come to the U.S.

with my mom because we sought better opportunities.

In many cases, there are refugees and immigrants who come to this country because they are fleeing for their lives.

They don't just want better opportunities, rather they seek the opportunity to stay alive.

These individuals were traumatized as they escaped dangerous situations, and now they are being traumatized again by racist immigration policies and dangerous actions by ICE.

This is why I support your effort to address this issue through legislation.

While you may not be able to completely stop the bigot who runs our country from the White House, you still have the ability to use local control powers and as a municipal government.

Thank you.

You may not be able to prevent ICE from using its cruel tactics, but you can limit its abilities by not providing local resources.

Your actions as our elected leaders continue to continue to support immigrants and refugees, make me proud to live in the welcoming city of Columbus.

This city benefits from the cultural diversity and positive economic impact of the immigrants and refugees who live and work here.

This community support of immigrant gives me hope that we can change course that this country is currently on, and that we can return to the values that truly make America great.

Thank you again for allowing me to provide testimony on this legislation.

Leo, thank you.

Thank you, my friend, for sharing your story, and thank you for sharing what is the sentiment of we know many, many people in our community today.

And you know, as a first generation American who was born and raised here, I I feel that deeply.

I feel like I was born here and sometimes don't feel like I belong here, and people make me feel that way.

And the policies that our government is putting forward makes us feel that way and makes us feel unsafe and makes our kids feel unsafe.

And that's not fair, and that's not just.

Did I say that right?

I'm so sorry.

So when you get up here, tell me on the mic, so I get it right.

Right.

Hi, welcome back to council.

Welcome.

Yes, um, I do agree with most of the things that you all have proposed.

So I'll start with that.

Um, my name is Charles, and I'm a black Filipino career abolitionist organizer.

Um, and who would have thought that Democrats would be asking the community how to stop the harm that they co-created with Republicans when establishing ICE years ago.

In fact, here last year, I was advocating to fully fund community support programs, but instead you all increase the police budget to hundreds of millions of dollars.

That money would have been helpful right now, right?

So, what do you want to hear?

Do you want to hear ideas?

Okay.

But I want to be very clear.

As a queer person, um, liberation means a world without prisons and detention centers.

The idea that more social workers or blue vest in prison, jails, and detention centers will only make the death and disappearance of ICE in the prison industrial complex more humane.

That is a cruel logic to follow and a false generosity to offer.

We don't need more mediocre reforms or polite debates.

We need to abolish these institutions that kidnap and disappear people.

So, what do you want to do?

Labor law.

Protect workers regardless of who they are.

People who are forced to be undocumented are exploited and have to take the most dangerous jobs just to make a bearable living.

And they often have their wages stolen.

Um, we can do more for our for those workers, and immigrants pay their taxes, and corporations again steal their wages.

Educate yourself on the prison industrial complex, the health outcomes of the Ohio for-profit incarceration system indicates that that is where people go to die and disappear.

No amount of community picnics or stage trust building acts with the Columbus kid killing politicians and um law enforcement can erase that data.

These are functional concentration camps and plantations.

Study white history so you don't implement more white policies.

Learn about how politicians like yourself created or have been or have found themselves entangled into destabilizing Latin communities that contribute to immigration due to Western economic terrorism.

The victims of Western terrorism have every right to work and live in our America.

Stop prioritizing incarceration and see the evil that the for-profit incarceration models that you allow to operate today exist.

Imagine how investing in 400 million dollars to community programs and groups could help people achieve the sit the sustainability and safety similar or that organizations like Chris strive to achieve.

Invest in community, not neoliberal policies or blue vest.

Um helping the rich profiting from the working class, stop selling Columbus working class people, charity, and update the livable wage.

Reduce the paperwork to get access to resources like food and housing, remove any citizenship requirements because Mexico lives in our country.

The immigrants who live south, the people who were born south of the border are still working class people and they are entitled and worthy to the public benefits here in the here in the United States.

And also rent control.

Some of these may take money, but city council have increased the police budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.

So I guess you can take my community feedback and package it really nicely so you can tell the Nazis to be less aggressive with their Nazism, or you can say Columbus will arrest ICE.

And that's the sort of white on white crime that I love to see.

Don't leave.

Thank you for being here.

Yes.

Uh thank you for always coming back.

Thank you for speaking truth to power.

I think there are certainly some things here that we should partner together because unfortunately, the truth is that the state is also forbidding us from doing some of the things that you are talking about because of their policies.

And so I think that that is the place where, as we think about problem solving, I want to ensure that these same sort of testimonies also happen at the State House, and that there are ways that we can come together to advocate for that because you know, things like rent control, the state prohibits us from doing that.

There are certain things that we are talking about.

So I appreciate that advocacy, and I think that we should just talk about how we work together to make those things happen.

Yeah, well, and hopefully we don't get um shot by ICE or the Columbus Police Department either while doing it.

Thank you, Charles, for being here.

Colleen O'Connor O'Connell.

And then we're gonna end with Ted Welsh.

Hey y'all, um, I am Colleen O'Connell, and I'm here today as a Columbus resident, one of your neighbors.

I'm a former middle school teacher, and I currently work as union staff to help the folks that make our public schools possible.

And I firmly believe that being neighbors is a sacred bond that we share, and that if you live in my community, I consider you my neighbor, full stop, no exceptions.

Every single one of our neighbors in Columbus deserve to feel safe to participate fully in our community and to have the opportunities and resources they need to thrive in their new their new home.

Um as we collectively witness our federal government wage a ruthless racist campaign of intimidation, fear, and violence through ICE, we're all called to ask how we can show up for each other as neighbors.

In particular, I feel that our elected neighbor leaders are called to do everything you can to protect our neighbors targeted by ICE and to make opportunities and resources possible for them.

So I'm grateful for this discussion today and the consideration of the policies to do just that.

More importantly, I want to voice my strong support of any policies that protect the dignity, rights, and well-being of our neighbors targeted by ICE, anything you can do to prevent our community resources and spaces from being used by ICE, as well as anything the city can do to prevent our tax dollars from supporting any businesses or contractors working with ICE.

And in addition, um, as a worker who is dedicated to empowering fellow workers, I'm sure that it's already underway, and I always like talking to Andy today to get here.

She was excellent.

Um, I do hope that workers like the people that helped us get here today are heard and brought to the table to ask what they need for any policies that passed, make sure that they're fully equipped, that they know who to call in an instant.

I taught when the pandemic happened during an unprecedented time, and I know what it's like when at a moment's notice everything's changing, and you're working to make it happen together for a good reason, but it helps a lot if you know who to call, what to do, and what your resources are.

Um that's all that I had to say, and thank you so much.

Well, and thank you for being an educator.

Thank you for um coming down today.

I mean, I think to your point, Central Ohio Worker Center was here earlier today.

We've been speaking with our unions as well about how what do we do at this time to protect.

I mean, I always say this.

I think the community is better than us and quicker than us.

I think unions, they already have an infrastructure to how they protect their people.

I mean, we're learning real time, and we're having conversations with our partners, and that's certainly part of the equation.

Um, while they were not represented here in the conversation, we had conversations with them about these policies and the continued work that we need to do to ensure that we're protecting folks, and how do we do that in partnership with them as well?

Because I think that they already have some policies in place, and they are actually lobbying Washington right now.

You know, all of our unions are to ensure that we are protecting workers, especially when they're at work sites.

We had a situation just the other day where I showed up at a work site, right?

And we were having conversations about what was the process.

So I hear you thank you for bringing that up because I think that's one thing that we didn't talk about today, but it's certainly something that we are having conversations about.

So thank you.

Yeah, thanks, y'all.

No, I because I'm gonna get it wrong, and I wanted to tell me I want you to tell me the correct pronunciation of your name.

Welcome everybody.

Everybody, my name is Phenon Bon Su, and I am here in representation of my community, my family, and people justice project.

So I came to talk about, so we talked a lot about a lot of things were said to ensure the communication of how ICE is supposed to act versus how they do act.

My reservation with uh ICE is the fact that their lawlessness has brought about so much trauma to all of us through them having the entitlement of being agents without any kind of there's no there seems to be no ramifications for their actions, and as President Harding said, had it not been for people taking video, we would not have known about those um murders that they've committed.

So what is it that we could do as citizens and as immigrants that can keep us safe in that direct moment?

Can we call 911 and they're gonna show up?

Because I live in a community where sometimes when we call them, they aren't here unless it's gun violence or unless it's so something that you know how do how do we keep ourselves safe?

How do we keep our community safe if someone can get shot for videoing?

How what are we supposed to do in this real time when they're busting our windows out?

Because some people, you know, there's fight or flight, and we're we're supposed to um yield to their power but or to their authority, however, we want to keep ourselves safe.

So it's like you know, can you fight back?

Can what can you do without getting killed?

We're at a loss because I want my family to be safe, and if someone is coming into your home, busting your car windows out, trying to apprehend you and it's groups of them versus just one person.

I'm a woman, I don't always look like an American.

I dress in African clothing, so if they're following me or if they're doing something, well, what am I supposed to do?

So I think that is um, and then not to talk about the fact that they haven't even been trained properly, all of them, nor have they given been given these um an assessment to see where they're where they are mentally, like all of those pose a problem.

That's where I that's what I just want to put out there and see what's being done about all of that.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely, and I'm I'm happy anyone can also jump in.

But I think there's two things.

I think one um is first of all, I think this is where we need to hold our congressional leaders accountable because they have the congressional authority to ask ICE to change, they have the authority, like where we don't, they do, right?

That's first and foremost, and that is a dissatisfying answer because of the state of our country right now, but it is it is the truest answer because we don't have that.

Second of all, I will say this I will say that our community-based organizations are doing God's work today.

Our community-based organizations are doing God's work to protect our families, to teach people how to properly be an observer, to teach people how to um or or to reach out, like you heard earlier with corn and with our helpers to deliver boxes when it is unsafe for people to leave their homes, right?

And so I think that as a community, when I look at our grassroots organizations, when I look at our resettlement organizations, they are doing the work and have been doing the work.

I mean, we are learning from them, right?

We are setting policies in place that we will work to enforce, but we are doing that in partnership with the community because it is not going right now with where we are, it can't just be the city, it can't just be the city that's going to save us.

It can't just be it's going to take a community-wide effort, and I think we're already seeing that work happen, and like I said, we're learning from that work, and we are we are listening, right?

And we're looking at all these policies.

There were things on the table that we wanted to go even further.

It was about what we were allowed to do.

I think the other thing, and I say this all the time: people come to council all the time, and we are here to listen because with they have a platform and they have a they have cameras.

But the state house, the state house is wild, and the state house is putting out policies every day without a meeting like this, without any sort of notice that is harming our communities far more than anything that is coming out of here.

And so I think if we don't place some advocacy there, then we're not going to see the changes because there are times they could hear the policies that we're putting in today and preempt us tomorrow.

And that's real.

And so I think that yes, continue to push on us, but then we all need to collectively also push on them.

Can I ask a question?

Sure.

So the ICE agents that are coming to our city.

Is there just like there's a roll call with the police, you know, uh everybody has everybody has identity and everybody has their you you how do we know who's in our city?

We don't.

So for example, and you can feel free to jump in.

Um ICE did Operation Buckeye, they gave us no notice that they were coming, nor did they give any notice to the field office that they were coming.

We understood that they were here because they were here.

They don't have to call us, they don't have to tell us.

They didn't even tell their own field office because that was a blitz team that is sent different cities around the country.

They could say anywhere between a few days to a few weeks to a few months.

Is that an accurate yeah, that's an accurate statement?

We were not contacted, and just like you said, we were told that they didn't even contact their local field office, which is their own employees and teammates, uh, that they were coming here, and we do know from the videos that is the same, a lot of the same agents that are causing issues in other cities.

Um we're seeing the same ones here in Columbus.

And we even, I mean, if if folks didn't see the front page of the dispatch, uh the governor himself asked for 24-hour notice if they were going to be dispatched to Springfield.

So if the governor of Ohio is asking ICE, what are they doing, then certainly the city of Columbus is not going to know what ICE is doing.

And so I just put that out there because we're learning as again.

I'm I think we have eyes on the streets.

I think part of the reason people are hearing more, ICE has always been here, but we have more eyes now that are reporting it.

We have people that are collecting data, and so I think we're just in a different time and we have more knowledge now than we did in the past.

So thank you.

Thank you for asking questions.

I think also coming coming to us with a heart of like wonder and what can we do.

And we are always it.

I deeply believe that now is a time where we it has always been a time for advocates and you know, social workers and teachers and community leaders and city government to come together.

We may not always agree, we have to hold each other accountable to a lot of different things, but this is the time where we really need to be unified to save to quite literally save people's lives.

So thank you.

Thank you for being here today.

Ted, come on down.

Welcome back to council.

Thank you for your patience.

You are gonna round out the evening.

You saved me from I did have some prepared remarks, but I kind of networked tonight.

This was extremely helpful for me and for my community.

I have over 200 homes in my civic organization that are Hispanic.

I've purchased supplies, I've gotten supplies from the city, I've taken to those homes and given out so they know their rights.

I have businesses.

I'm working, and I'm interested to know about PALs because I've already gone to the grocery stores and said, I'll deliver your groceries.

Let me know.

I'm working with the Franklin County Auditor's Office now because there are individuals who have homes in our community that are being assessed higher tax rates.

I'm working and representing them to help them reduce their taxes.

I feel the need to work in my community to make these individuals.

I was an immigrant.

And what I did to the Native American community, or what my you know, ancestors did to the Native Community.

I'm appalled.

We brought disease.

We shoved them out of their country.

I love Councilmember White's idea that we need to watch who we do business with.

You know what?

This is a cancer.

Sometimes the cancer requires us to dig down deep and do things that may cause a little bit of uncomfort.

Maybe we do need to pay a little more to get business from an individual who doesn't work with ice.

You know.

When we have cancer, we have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

We have to do things that are uncomfortable.

We have a cancer in this nation.

And we have to address it.

And this is the first step.

I appreciate everything that you're doing for the Hispanic community and for the Asians that I have in my community, and for the uh Haitians that I have in my community.

We have a church that has a Haitian family in our community on Lockborn.

They just brought in a young infant last year.

And now they're afraid this young pastor, he's gonna have to go back to Haiti with his family.

We need to make sure that we protect those people that enhance our community who bring us the best of the best.

When I was with Ashville University as a student, I traveled overseas all over Europe, the Mid East and so forth.

They taught me things that I never would have known otherwise.

That made me a better person.

That made me more understanding.

That made me search my soul and know that everybody is a part of my community.

I love roses.

But we have roses and daylilies because the daylilies make my roses look nicer, and my roses make his daylilies look nicer.

They're different, but together, they bring a beauty that is remarkable.

We need our community of immigrants.

They bring the best.

They came here with a dream and a hope.

Let's make sure that that hope doesn't get extinguished and never leaves.

Thank you for your time.

I vote, or I'm in favor of this legislation.

Please, please help our community.

They mean so much to me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ted.

Thank you for being here.

And I want to thank everyone who was here tonight for coming out for hanging out with us.

I know this was, I think this might be my longest um longest hearing on the book so far.

I uh just want to tell people what to expect.

So they are the pieces of legislation that we introduced today was an entire package.

While we're exploring the pieces that are a little bit more ready for prime time, those will be introduced on Monday, and then from there, the pieces that might require us to do a little bit more work and a little bit more digging.

Folks will see those coming in the next couple weeks.

Um, but I we wanted to present the entire package so everyone could understand what we were considering, and as we make changes, we will share those.

When they're presented on the floor, we'll explain what the changes are.

We'll probably do another presentation.

But I want to thank everyone for coming out and for supporting our community.

Um, I think back to what council president said at the beginning of this moody meeting is that some people will look at what ICE is doing and say that's the best of us, but we look at how we reacted in the community that was here tonight and say, no, this is the best of us.

And so as a Columbus kid born and raised and the place where I choose, the place where my parents chose to call home.

The place where I'm choosing to raise my daughters, I'm incredibly proud of our community.

I'm incredibly proud of the folks who showed up today.

Uh, whether you feel proximate to this community or you felt a sense of advocacy, whether you work in this community every day, this is our community.

This is our community.

These are our friends and these are our neighbors, and protecting them.

Uh, if you invest in the people furthest away from justice, all boats rise.

And so if we ensure that uh everyone feels protected, everyone feels that sense of dignity and respect, then everyone in our community will surely feel that.

So thank you again for being here this uh this evening.

Please get home safe and um stay tuned for uh what might happen on Monday.

Thank you.

Thank you.