Seattle Council adds $300,000 for immigrant legal defense in midyear budget

Council member Rink moved and the Seattle City Council adopted an amendment on Aug. 5 to the city’s midyear supplemental budget that directs $300,000 to the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) to be distributed to nonprofit organizations providing legal defense for unaccompanied children facing detention and deportation.

The amendment passed in a roll-call vote, 5 in favor, 2 opposed and 1 abstention. Council members Solomon, Strauss, Hollingsworth, Rink and Pro Tem Robert Kettle voted yes; Council members Rivera and Saka voted no; Council member Juarez abstained after stating she must recuse herself. The larger midyear supplemental bill passed later in the meeting as amended, 7 in favor and 1 abstention.

Rink described the amendment as a targeted use of underspent funds from a jail contract and said it would provide direct legal support: “This amendment would provide 300,000 to the city's office of immigrant refugee affairs to distribute to nonprofit organizations working on legal defense of unaccompanied children facing detention and deportation,” and said the amount “essentially equates to supporting 60 cases for children facing deportation.”

Council member Rivera said the OIRA director had confirmed that the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project had taken on cases previously handled by Kids in Need of Defense, and cautioned that the executive was already counting the underspend toward the 2026 budget. Rivera said she could not support removing the $300,000 from the funds the executive planned to use in 2026, noting uncertainty about what cuts might follow if the council diverted the underspend now.

Council member Saka said she appreciated Rink’s intent but would not support the amendment because a funding path for immigration and refugee services had been included in the B&O tax package the council approved the previous day, and she preferred to consider the matter as part of the full fall budget. Council member Strauss said he supported immediate action to get funding out in 2025 for urgent needs.

Council member Juarez stated on the record that she would recuse herself from the vote because she was stepping down from a related board: “I have to recuse myself from this vote as I currently, sit on and in the midst of actually this morning getting down off the RIWA board.”

Council President Pro Tem Robert Kettle, speaking from personal knowledge of a Real Change vendor who had been detained, said the allocation was “a real situation” and added his support. The amendment’s sponsor and supporters emphasized the use of existing underspend rather than cuts to other current programs; opponents cautioned the executive’s accounting for underspend in next year’s budget could create downstream trade-offs.

The amendment language directs OIRA to distribute the funds to nonprofit organizations providing legal defense; the ordinance amendment itself does not name specific grantees. The council record shows the $300,000 was described as coming from underspend on a jail services contract. The meeting did not record a departmental implementation schedule or named grantee contracts; the council’s action was to authorize reallocation in the current fiscal year.

The final passage of the midyear supplemental budget as amended was recorded by roll call: seven votes in favor (Solomon, Strauss, Hollingsworth, Rink, Rivera, Saka and Pro Tem Kettle) and one abstention (Juarez).