Immigration, surveillance and rent gouging top public-comments at Richmond council meeting

During the public-comment period at the Richmond City Council meeting, several residents and advocates called on council to adopt legally enforceable protections for immigrants, to end contracts with mass surveillance vendors, and to prioritize state legislation to limit rent gouging.

Calls for a trust policy and to end surveillance. Fern Diaz Castro and speakers representing New Virginia Majority and other immigrant-rights groups urged council to adopt a legally binding "trust policy" like Arlington County's, which would bar local agencies from honoring ICE detainers without a judicial warrant, prohibit release of personal or jail data to federal immigration authorities, and deny ICE access to people in local custody. Victoria McCullough and Lisa DeLeo urged the council to terminate the city's contract with a license-plate-reader vendor, Flock (referred to in testimony as the vendor providing automatic license-plate readers), arguing the cameras create mass location databases and can be misused or shared across jurisdictions and with federal agents.

Public testimony referenced incidents and risks. McCullough said council staff had acknowledged that a federal agent used Richmond Police Department license-plate data in an inquiry earlier in the year and that Chesterfield County actively shares its system. Fern Diaz Castro described national raids and local detentions and urged the city to act pre-emptively to protect immigrant families.

Housing and anti-rent-gouging demands. Multiple speakers asked the council to add anti-rent-gouging protections to the city's state legislative agenda. Casey Miller and Jana Hobbs described rising rents, displacement pressures, and the failure of state bills such as SB 1136 (referenced by a speaker) in previous sessions. Miller and Hobbs also criticized the diversion of what they described as funds earmarked for affordable housing toward other projects.

Other concerns. Commenters tied surveillance and housing insecurity to broader community safety and equity arguments, arguing that surveillance tools enable profiling and that unchecked rent increases and corporate ownership patterns are pricing longtime residents out of neighborhoods.

Ending: Council members heard the testimony; several said they would pursue follow-up and legislative advocacy. The topic is likely to reappear in committee or during the council's legislative agenda development process.