Anticipating possible immigration raids by federal authorities, the Phoenix City Council voted 7-1 on March 4 to spend up to $500,000 on outside legal counsel to help the city prepare for potential court battles.<\/p>\n
The contract with Phoenix law firm Coppersmith Brockelman PLC is part of the city\u2019s Community Transparency Initiative, a framework council members adopted last month to help Phoenix respond if federal immigration enforcement actions occur in the city.<\/p>\n
Councilman Jim Waring voted against the measure and Councilwoman Ann O\u2019Brien was absent.<\/p>\n
City leaders said the outside attorneys would advise the city and represent Phoenix if legal challenges arise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing what we can to protect our residents in the event that the federal government does here what they did in Minnesota, massive civil rights violations, violence against innocent people and zero respect for rule of law,\u201d Mayor Kate Gallego said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn essential part of our efforts to protect our residents is to make sure we have the right team on our side if we take legal action against the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the law firm comprises \u201cexperienced lawyers who have handled complex federal issues on an emergency basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gallego specifically mentioned law firm member Bo Dul, a former counsel to the governor and state Secretary of State.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a champion of Arizona\u2019s immigrant community and one of the founders of the Phoenix Legal Action Network, which works with and advocates for immigrants,\u201d the mayor said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gallego also said, \u201cWe will be taking many more actions as we prepare for potential federal overreach, but this is an important one.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Attorney Julie Kriegh said Dul will advise Phoenix \u201cif it becomes necessary to bring or defend against litigation related to either immigration raids or the new Community Transparency Initiative.”<\/p>\n
That initiative directs city staff to \u201cdocument and preserve information on federal immigration enforcement activities within Phoenix city limits that may violate criminal statutes and\/or individual civil rights with the intent to investigate crimes committed by federal agents who act outside the scope of their duties.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also directs staff to \u201ccollect data on impacts to City services as a result of federal immigration enforcement,\u201d \u201cidentify potential partnerships and volunteer opportunities to facilitate the initiative,\u201d \u201cEnsure multilingual communication channels across City services and resources,\u201d and train city workers \u201cwho may encounter federal enforcement actions, including protocols related to administrative and judicial warrants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only two council members \u2013\u00a0 Anna Hernandez and Kesha Hodge Washington \u2013 commented during the meeting besides the mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is very important for us just to be very clear with our residents that we do take these preparations and the response to I.C.E. and Trump very seriously,\u201d Hernandez said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.<\/p>\n
She asked Kriegh if the law firm \u201cis going to support our legal team as we prepare for I.C.E. and Trump as outlined in the Community Transparency Initiative.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kriegh replied, \u201cThat is correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city attorney also said using the firm iis \u201cmore of an issue of helping to advise us on some of the directives that council had passed. We were asked to also look at staging and looking at a number of different areas, so each of those might involve some legal risk or some legal questions that we needed to help evaluate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hodge Washington added, \u201cI think this item represents the city taken an important step in advance in the Community Transparency Initiative that Council directed staff to develop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTransparency builds trust, and when residents feel informed, included and heard, confidence in local government grows stronger,\u201d she said, saying the firm \u201cwill help provide the legal and structural framework necessary to ensure that the city\u2019s efforts are thoughtful, legally sound and sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stating \u201cthe more thoughts and more leaders and individuals that are part of that process..provide for a stronger plan going forward,\u201d Hodge Washington also said the firm will \u201censure that our residents feel safe and protected the fear and frustration that some of our residents feel from what we\u2019re seeing in other parts of our country as a result of our federal administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also thanked Gallego for taking a step that is \u201cfoundational to good governance and (aims) to restore in the public trust.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anticipating possible immigration raids by federal authorities, the Phoenix City Council voted 7-1 on March 4 to spend…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":655062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,132989,5643,1587,277699,122170,111172,1589,78288,277700,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-655061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-ann-obrien","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-coppersmith-brockelman-plc","tag-jim-waring","tag-kate-gallego","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-city-council","tag-phoenix-community-transparency-initiative","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116227579988656553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}