ICE in Washington State: Arrests, Driver Data, and Sanctuary Law

Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Washington state escalated sharply through 2025 and into 2026, with monthly arrests more than tripling, agents using state driver records to identify targets, and roadside stops replacing warrant-based arrests as the dominant tactic. The state has pushed back through the Keep Washington Working Act, a lawsuit against a noncompliant sheriff, blocked data channels, new legislation, and local moratoriums on detention expansion, but federal enforcement continues and several protections have gaps you should know about.

How Arrests Escalated in 2025

ICE arrests in Washington climbed from fewer than 100 in January 2025 to more than 350 in December, according to an analysis of federal I-213 arrest forms by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. Across the Seattle Area of Responsibility, which covers Washington, Oregon, and Alaska, quarterly arrests reached nearly 2,250 in the final three months of 2025, approaching the historic highs of the first Obama administration.¹ The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network’s statewide deportation defense hotline logged more than 10,000 calls in 2025, over double the prior year.²

The tactic driving the surge is what researchers call the non-custodial arrest. Combined teams of ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers run license plates in the field, query state databases to identify vehicle owners, and stop drivers on the street with no previously obtained warrant and no individualized probable cause assessment.¹ WAISN volunteers have reported incidents of agents breaking car windows to extract people.²

Where Enforcement Is Concentrated

Activity that once clustered near immigration offices or the Tacoma detention center has spread. Yakima County had the highest per capita arrest rate in 2025 at over 180 per 100,000 residents, followed by Franklin, Whatcom, Mason, Chelan, and King counties.¹ Reports now span from Clallam County on the Olympic Peninsula to Adams County in Eastern Washington.² WAISN also reported a rise in calls from U.S. citizens of color who had been asked by federal officials to provide documentation.³

How Federal Agents Got Washington Driver Data

A central reason roadside stops have been so effective is that federal agents had access to Washington’s Department of Licensing records. A KING 5 investigation in summer 2025 revealed DOL had quietly reinstated federal agency access to its Driver and Plate Search database in 2018, after publicly canceling those agreements earlier that year in response to protests. Federal searches jumped 188% after the November 2024 election, with ICE searches rising from roughly 540 in November 2024 to over 1,600 in May 2026.⁴

DOL terminated Homeland Security Investigations’ access to that database on August 27, 2025, after finding HSI had been coordinating with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.⁵⁶⁷

The state blocked ICE from the Nlets/ACCESS channel on November 19, 2025, and reported that thousands of subsequent ICE queries were denied.⁶ As of early 2026, CBP and HSI still had access, and the Washington State Patrol said it was reviewing options for CBP’s continued use.⁸ A state budget provision now requires the Attorney General’s Office to review all agency data-sharing practices for remaining loopholes.⁴

What the Keep Washington Working Act Restricts

The Keep Washington Working Act, signed May 21, 2019, is the foundation of state limits on cooperation with civil immigration enforcement. It restricts state and local agencies in five main ways:⁹

Officers cannot ask about immigration or citizenship status or place of birth unless it is tied to a state or local criminal investigation.
Agencies cannot detain anyone based solely on a civil immigration detainer, hold request, or administrative warrant. Only warrants signed by a federal Article III judge or a state court judge may be honored.
Agencies cannot share nonpublic personal information with federal immigration authorities for noncriminal matters, except as required by law or court order.
Federal immigration agents generally cannot access people in custody for civil immigration interviews unless the person gives written consent after being advised of their rights.
Local agencies cannot enter agreements granting officers federal civil immigration enforcement authority, such as 287(g) agreements.

Public schools, courthouses, health facilities, and shelters must adopt policies consistent with the attorney general’s model guidance.¹⁰ One important limitation: the law does not restrict automatic fingerprint sharing with the FBI and federal databases during jail booking through the Secure Communities program.¹¹

The Adams County Suit

Compliance has not been uniform. In March 2025, Attorney General Nick Brown sued the Adams County Sheriff’s Office in Spokane County Superior Court, alleging the office had held people based solely on immigration status, helped federal agents question detainees, and routinely shared confidential personal information with ICE in violation of the Act.¹² The attorney general’s office said Adams County had been in settlement negotiations but broke them off after the Trump inauguration. The sheriff’s office, represented by America First Legal, removed the case to federal court, but a judge sent it back to state court in June 2025.¹³

Schools, Churches, and Hospitals After the Rollback

The Trump administration rescinded the longstanding 2011 directive that discouraged ICE and CBP from arrests at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals, houses of worship, and funerals.¹⁴ January 2025 guidance delegates enforcement decisions at or near these locations to field-level supervisors on a case-by-case basis. A March 2025 court order partially restored the earlier restrictions for roughly 1,400 specified places of worship across 36 states, requiring agents at those locations to follow the more protective policy absent a warrant.¹⁵

Several Seattle schools sheltered in place in January 2026 after reports of nearby ICE activity, though those reports turned out to be false.¹⁶ In Wenatchee, community members reported ICE vehicles parked outside churches in December 2025, and some congregations began locking doors shortly after services and posting signs asserting that agents may not enter without a judicial warrant.¹⁷ King County Executive Girmay Zahilay signed an executive order in February 2026 banning immigration enforcement agents from nonpublic county property.

Local Sanctuary Rules and Detention Moratoriums

Seattle and King County have long-standing sanctuary policies. Seattle Ordinance 121063 (2003) instructs city employees not to inquire about immigration status; King County Ordinance 17866 (2014) requires a federal judicial warrant before honoring an ICE detainer.¹⁸

After a December 2025 DHS pre-solicitation notice signaled expanded detention capacity in the Seattle/King County area, several jurisdictions passed emergency moratoriums on new or expanded facilities in early 2026:¹⁹

SeaTac, February 10, 2026.
Tukwila, six-month moratorium, February 23, 2026.
King County, one-year moratorium, March 3, 2026.
Kent, six-month moratorium, March 3, 2026.
Seattle, one-year moratorium, unanimous, March 10, 2026.
Renton City Council directed staff to draft a moratorium ordinance on February 23, 2026.

The Tacoma Detention Center

The Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma is the region’s primary immigration detention facility. It is owned and operated by The GEO Group and has a capacity of 1,575 beds.²⁰ By October 2025 it held 1,427 people, and reports indicated the population at times appeared to exceed capacity during summer 2025.²¹

In December 2025, a group of Washington congressional members led by Senator Patty Murray wrote to ICE flagging deteriorating conditions, including reports of three pregnant women unable to access appropriate medical care, two suicide attempts in April 2025, attorney wait times up to six hours, and a reduction in available attorney visitation rooms.²¹ A June 2023 unannounced inspection by the DHS Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman had identified 28 findings across general custody, contract compliance, and medical care, including problems with sanitation, grievance handling, medical staffing, and suicide-watch protocols.²⁰ A UWCHR report in July 2025 found that GEO had never been sanctioned by ICE despite documented failures to meet contract standards.²²

GEO’s 10-year contract, valued at least $700 million, expired in late September 2025. Neither ICE nor GEO publicly confirmed a renewal, and U.S. Rep. Emily Randall said her requests to see the new contract were denied.²² In March 2026, a six-month extension worth roughly $69 million, covering operations through October 2026, appeared on the federal contracting site SAM.gov.²³

The Oregon Injunction and What It Could Mean Here

On February 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai in Oregon issued a preliminary injunction ordering the Department of Homeland Security to stop warrantless civil immigration arrests in the District of Oregon without a pre-arrest, individualized determination that the person was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained.²⁴ The court found the practice of running plates and arresting people without individualized flight-risk assessments likely violated federal law. The injunction applies only in Oregon. UWCHR researchers note that the same tactics are used in Washington but have not yet been challenged in court here.¹

Governor’s Actions and Federal Lawsuits

On January 27, 2025, Governor Bob Ferguson signed Executive Order 25-04, creating a Family Separation Rapid Response Team within the Department of Children, Youth and Families to ensure children separated from parents during deportations continue to receive care and access education.²⁵ On September 29, 2025, he signed Executive Order 25-09, creating an Immigration Sub-Cabinet to coordinate state agency work on data privacy, healthcare, and Keep Washington Working Act compliance.²⁶

Attorney General Brown has joined multi-state suits against federal funding cuts tied to immigration enforcement. In August 2025, he joined a challenge to the administration for conditioning over $1 billion in congressionally authorized crime-victim funding on states’ willingness to perform federal immigration enforcement, threatening over $34 million in Washington programs including domestic violence services and emergency shelters. In September 2025, he joined a suit challenging reallocation of federal homeland security funding away from states that decline to divert law enforcement to immigration enforcement, a shift that cut $2 million from Washington. The state won that case.²⁷

New and Pending State Legislation

The Immigrant Worker Protection Act (HB 2105), requested by the attorney general, requires employers to notify workers within 72 hours of receiving notice of planned federal immigration enforcement at their workplace. Governor Ferguson signed it into law on March 30, 2026.²⁸

The SAFE Act (SB 5906) would have required federal immigration agents to obtain a judicial warrant or court order to enter nonpublic areas of schools, health facilities, and election offices. It passed the Senate 30-19 on a party-line vote in February 2026 but stalled in the House and was returned to the Senate Rules Committee in March 2026 without reaching the governor.¹⁶²⁹ A separate bill on state and local law enforcement interactions with federal immigration officials (HB 2648) was referred to the House Appropriations Committee in February 2026.³⁰

What to Do If You Encounter or Witness ICE Activity

The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network operates a statewide deportation defense hotline at 1-844-724-3737 for reporting detentions and enforcement activity. Since 2017, the hotline has received over 360,000 calls.³¹ WAISN also runs an SMS alert system, a rapid response network, and an accompaniment program that sends trained volunteers to immigration hearings and check-ins.³² The Washington Attorney General’s Office publishes a Know Your Rights guide explaining that you have the right to remain silent, to refuse entry to officers who lack a judicial warrant, to request an attorney, and to contact your consulate if detained.³³

1
University of Washington Center for Human Rights. New Data on PNW Immigration Enforcement Reveal Powerful Surge in Late 2025
2
OPB. Washington Nonprofit Immigration Enforcement Surge
3
OPB. Washington Nonprofit Immigration Enforcement Surge
4
KING 5. Exclusive: Washington State Agency Shares Private Driver Data With ICE
5
ACLU of Washington. ACLU-WA Statement Regarding WA Department of Licensing Terminating HSI Access to Driver and Plate Search Database
6
Washington State Standard. ICE Searched WA Drivers License Data Into November, Report Finds
7
University of Washington Center for Human Rights. Roadside Assist: Washington States Continued Sharing of Drivers Information With Federal Immigration Enforcement
8
KING 5. Federal Immigration Agents Continued Using Washington Driver Data
9
Washington Attorney General’s Office. Keep Washington Working Act FAQ for Law Enforcement
10
Pierce County. Keep WA Working Act Summary
11
University of Washington Center for Human Rights. Paths to Compliance: The Effort to Protect Immigrant Rights in Washington State
12
Washington Attorney General’s Office. Washington State Sues Adams County to Stop Illegal Federal Immigration Enforcement
13
CourtListener. State of Washington v. Adams County Sheriffs Office
14
ABC News. Trump Authorizes ICE to Target Schools, Churches
15
ICE. Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas
16
Washington State Standard. WA Lawmakers Want to Restrict ICE Access to Schools, Health Facilities
17
Washington State Standard. Churches and Advocates Mobilize as ICE Activity Continues in WA
18
City of Seattle. Seattle Immigration Policy FAQ
19
Seattle City Council. Seattle City Council Unanimously Approves Emergency Moratorium on Detention Centers
20
DHS Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. Inspection Report: Northwest ICE Processing Center
21
KUOW. WA Congress Members Flag Deteriorating Conditions at Tacoma Detention Center
22
KUOW. As 10-Year Contract to Run Tacoma ICE Center Ends, Lawmakers Demand Transparency
23
The News Tribune. GEO Group Contract Extension at NWIPC
24
Innovation Law Lab. Order Granting Preliminary Injunction, Case No. 6:25-cv-02011-MTK
25
Washington State Standard. Ferguson Signs Executive Order Aiming to Help Children Whose Parents Are Deported
26
Governor of Washington. Governor Ferguson Signs Executive Order Reaffirming Washingtons Commitment to Protecting Immigrant Communities
27
Washington Attorney General’s Office. Washington Attorney Generals Federal Litigation Tracker
28
Washington State Legislature. HB 2105 Bill Summary
29
Washington State Legislature. SB 5906 Bill Summary
30
Washington State Legislature. HB 2648 Bill Summary
31
WAISN. Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network
32
WAISN. Deportation Defense
33
Washington Attorney General’s Office. Know Your Rights: Civil Immigration Enforcement in Washington