Committee hears bill to bar immigration-enforcement entry into nonpublic school and early-learning spaces without judicial warrant

Senate Bill 5,906, called the SAFE Act by its sponsor, received a committee briefing and extended public comment on Feb. 26 as legislators weighed how far Keep Washington Working protections should extend beyond public schools.

Senator Drew Hansen, the bill’s prime sponsor, told the Civil Rights and Judiciary Committee the measure would prohibit early learning providers, daycare and healthcare facilities, institutions of higher education and adult family homes from allowing immigration-enforcement officers to enter designated nonpublic areas without a judicial warrant. Hansen said the bill is designed to assure families and patients that federal agents cannot enter sensitive areas "unless they go before a federal judge and convince a federal judge that there's a specific reason they have to be in a specific place." He described the proposal as a Fourth Amendment safeguard and an expansion of earlier Keep Washington Working protections.

Yolanda Baker, staff to the committee, summarized the bill’s main provisions: (1) limit early learning providers and school-district employees from collecting information on immigration or citizenship status except when required by law or to administer an eligible public program; (2) direct the Attorney General to develop model policies limiting assistance with immigration enforcement in early learning settings; (3) require public and private healthcare facilities, institutions of higher education and adult family homes to designate areas as public or nonpublic and bar immigration-enforcement entry into nonpublic areas without a valid judicial warrant; and (4) require employers to contact collective bargaining representatives when a worker on site becomes the subject of immigration enforcement.

Supporters emphasized student and patient privacy. Kristen Wiggins (OneAmerica) and Vanessa Torres Hernandez (ACLU of Washington) said model policies are needed to clarify line-drawing in mixed-use or family-home childcare settings and to reassure parents that school districts and early learning programs will not collect immigration status data for enforcement purposes. Melissa Johnson (Washington State Nurses Association) urged that enforcement responsibility fall to management, not frontline staff, and requested a clearer statutory definition of "healthcare facilities." The Adult Family Home Council asked that adult family homes be presumed nonpublic unless the provider designates an area public.

County auditors and elections officials urged retention of a provision identifying ballot-handling locations as nonpublic. Sean Merchant, policy director in the Secretary of State’s office, and Michael Shaw (Washington State Association of County Auditors) said keeping that language supports ballot security and allows auditors to implement existing observation and designation practices.

Opponents and skeptics focused on enforceability and scope. Representative Graham and Representative Grama pressed the sponsor for evidence of the ICE incidents referenced in testimony; Hansen pointed to publicly reported news articles about activity in Spokane and Issaquah. Anthony McServe, testifying in opposition, argued the bill attempts to “condition access” and places state actors between federal enforcement and local administrators in ways he said are not constitutionally enforceable.

Committee members sought clarifications about whether the bill singles out ICE (staff said it refers broadly to immigration enforcement agencies), how model policies would interact with existing Attorney General guidance, and whether civil investigative demands or other administrative processes would be affected. Senator Hansen and staff said the measure addresses physical entry into nonpublic interior spaces and distinguished warrants for entry from administrative discovery processes.

The hearing record includes multiple requests for technical clarifications — definitions of healthcare facilities, the process for designating nonpublic spaces in mixed-use settings, and enforcement responsibilities — that supporters asked the committee to address in amendments.

The committee suspended the SB 5,906 segment and moved on to other bills; there was no committee vote on the measure during this hearing. The sponsor said he would provide news articles cited as background to members who requested them.