City of Eagle becomes non-sanctuary city, meaning fewer services and protections for undocumented people

Originally published July 19 on KTVB.COM .

EAGLE — The city of Eagle recently became a non-sanctuary city after a recent city council decision, and that decision has left the city riddled with controversy.

“What they’re doing is they’re sending a message to people who are undocumented here in Idaho, saying they are not welcome in their city limits. and so that has dangerous implications,“ Estefania Mondragon, executive director for PODER of Idaho, told KTVB on Friday.

PODER is an organization that “organizes and empowers the Latinx and immigrant communities,” according to its website.

On June 9, council approved a resolution — stating the city of Eagle is a non-sanctuary city, meaning taxpayer dollars cannot go toward services for undocumented people.

That usually looks like more collaboration with ICE and law enforcement, and fewer protections and services for undocumented people, Mondragon said.

“I think concerns from the citizens as to what was going on with the ... I will not say illegal immigration, but the potential for rumors of migrants coming into the community,” Eagle Mayor Brad Pike told KTVB.

A video circulating on social media from May showing who are assumed to be undocumented people outside Fairview Plaza in Boise, with a charter bus nearby, may have influenced the resolution, Pike said.

An Eagle citizen went to the council with that concern. And later, that same councilmember introduced the resolution.

“How would they know if they’re undocumented?" Mondragon asked. “Is there a skin color that they’re looking at specifically, that flags as someone as undocumented? If that’s the case, then that’s considered racial profiling.”

The resolution was reviewed by the city’s attorney before it was placed on the consent agenda, Pike said.

“I think that generated some concerns with what’s happening with our city and our tax dollars,” Pike said. “(Eagle citizens) didn’t want any of their tax dollars go into illegal immigration from any nationality or any ethnic group.”

Mondragon and others in the community believe the resolution was passed “quietly” and in a “slick way” because it was passed as a consent agenda item, without chance for public comment.

“A council member, a staff member, or a citizen of the city, which is the main emphasis I want to stress here has the opportunity to come up and have one of those items pulled for discussion,” Pike said about the resolution.

He added no one spoke up and asked for the item to be pulled for discussion, so the resolution passed. KTVB asked Pike if the city could have publicized it more before the meeting.

“In terms of sneaking something on or passing it through under the radar, this absolutely did not occur that way,” Pike said. “Because it was an agendized topic. It’s out there in black-and-white print. And you can see it, it says right there that we’re going to, you know, discuss resolution 24-07 in the consent form.”

When asked if the city has used taxpayer dollars in the past for services supporting undocumented people, Pike said no.

“We do not specifically as a city have those programs or the need for those programs,” Pike said. “We don’t have farms, we don’t have dairies, we don’t have ag that requires the services of labor to come into the community.”

The resolution was more of statement, Pike said not a city code or an ordinance. He added that Eagle does “not have an illegal immigration problem” but he believes citizens wanted to be “proactive,” he said.

“They’re (undocumented people) not going to be willing to go to police and other officials to report because they know that ... the city has said they’re not welcome in a city like Eagle,” Mondragon said.

Many undocumented people live and work in Eagle, according to Mondragon. She said this message from Eagle is “harmful" and sends “a chilling effect.”

“What we see here locally is in Idaho is that the economic input of undocumented immigrants in the state is 7%, while only being 6% of the state’s overall population,” Mondragon said.

Which translates to a 1% gain here in Idaho.

“And not just that ... undocumented people provide $2.8 billion in for the state of Idaho’s economy,” she added.

Mondragon said the city of Eagle sends a “very xenophobic and racist message.”

In response, Pike said, “we’re not a profiling community ... we’re not a racist community ... my point of this whole thing is you can’t profile people based on if they get out of a vehicle or they’re dropped off, because we do have migrant season workers that are coming in.”

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