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City solicitor, ACLU outline legal basis for Philadelphia’s no‑detainer and nondisclosure policies
Summary
Philadelphia’s leading municipal lawyers and civil‑liberties groups described city executive orders and police memoranda that limit honoring ICE detainer requests and restrict immigration inquiries by city employees, and explained why courts have upheld those local policies.
City Solicitor Renee Garcia told City Council committee members that Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance and two executive orders form the legal backbone for city protections discussed at the hearing.
Garcia said Executive Order 0516 directs city agencies not to honor ICE detainer requests and to honor only judiciously issued judicial warrants. She described Executive Order 0809 as ensuring city services are available “regardless of immigration status” and prohibiting city employees from asking about immigration status unless required to provide a specific service; a confidentiality clause restricts internal disclosure of any immigration information held by city agencies.
"We do not honor detainer requests. And under the law, we do not have to honor detainer requests. We honor judicial warrants," the city solicitor said in response to council questions about EO0516.
Vanessa Stein, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, explained how ICE detainer hold requests function in practice, calling them non‑mandatory requests that ask local jails to hold people beyond release dates. Stein said Philadelphia’s policies are grounded in Fourth Amendment detention principles and help protect trust between immigrant communities and local service providers while reducing municipal liability. She also referenced Police Memorandum 0106, which limits the circumstances under which police may share immigration status information.
Stein told the committee that courts, including the Third Circuit, have rejected federal attempts to withhold funding from jurisdictions that decline to honor ICE holds; she urged the city to stand firm in enforcing existing policies.
City and nonprofit counsel agreed to produce more detailed briefings for council staff about how the executive orders operate across city departments and to circulate copies of the federal executive orders that spurred the hearing.
The hearing did not produce any council votes to change city policy. Officials repeatedly cautioned that the laws and policies discussed are complex and that further legal analysis and interagency coordination will be required before any change.
