Evanston council strengthens Welcoming City protections and hosts Know-Your-Rights training

Evanston city officials on Wednesday described a newly updated Welcoming City ordinance and led a bilingual Know Your Rights training for residents worried about federal immigration enforcement.

Mayor Biss opened the event by saying the city must be ready to act "quickly" and in solidarity: "we have a responsibility morally as a community to put our arms around each other, to stand together." Liza Robertson Young, the city's chief legislative policy adviser, said the ordinance update — adopted "a week ago" — tightens protections on data sharing, narrows prior exceptions that allowed cooperation with civil immigration enforcement, and codifies several Evanston Police Department practices into law.

The changes described by Robertson Young include a prohibition on sharing city databases or data-platform information with federal agencies or third-party data brokers for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement unless the third party certifies it will not share the data for immigration purposes. The ordinance also removes prior exceptions that had allowed local cooperation when people were listed in gang databases, charged but not convicted, or had unrelated old felony convictions; the city will continue to comply with valid criminal warrants that meet constitutional probable-cause standards. Robertson Young said the city also extended the prohibition beyond Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to any federal agents who may…