The Fayetteville mayor’s office and the city’s attorney have released new statements weighing in on recent comments made by Mayor Molly Rawn related to local police (not) assisting immigration authorities, a statement that prompted a complaint from a state lawmaker that could result in state funds being withheld from the city.
On June 17, the Fayetteville Police Department (FPD) received a request for help from Arkansas Highway Patrol for a traffic stop near Exit 64 of I-49. When the FPD officer arrived, they reportedly saw highway patrol and ICE present and left the scene. The city said the officer had not involvement and maintains that the local law enforcement does not participate in “civil immigration enforcement violations.” Mayor Rawn said, “The City of Fayetteville does not assist ICE in carrying out its agenda. Our police department’s role is to keep our community safe, not to act as agents of immigration enforcement.”
Arkansas state lawmaker, Kendon Underwood, then filed a complaint that the mayor’s statements violated Arkansas state law banning sanctuary cities. The Mayor’s office has responded that the city has continuously followed state law related to sanctuary cities but that the state law doesn’t require Fayetteville police to “act as agents of immigration enforcement.”
“The law does not require the City of Fayetteville to assist ICE in carrying out its agenda. ICE’s agenda includes a range of federal enforcement actions, such as searching for, arresting, and detaining undocumented immigrants — but there is not statutory requirement that local police departments must participate.” The statement continued to say that the city does not have knowledge of people’s immigration status, does not operate detention facilities for holding people detained by ICE, and does not act on the agency’s behalf.
Legal counsel for the mayor and city council also said: “My review of the facts of this is that Fayetteville has not violated this law. The City of Fayetteville has diligently followed the dictates of the sanctuary policies prohib[ition] since its effective date in 2019 and is determined to continue abiding by this law.” Williams said he was confident Attorney General Tim Griffin would agree with his assessment and find that Fayetteville and Mayor Rawn’s statement had not violated the law.
The city attorney added that this was likely the first complaint against the city for allegedly violating the sanctuary city ban since it was enacted in 2019.
“There were no problems for six years and I just think that Mayor Rawn’s comment was something that made the representative uneasy, but it’s nothing that really was in violation of the sanctuaries law.”
Screenshots from recorded 5newsonline news report
