“Survive the encounter.”

That was Island County Sheriff Rick Felici’s advice to Whidbey residents on handling interactions with ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during an Island County Board of Commissioners’ special session on public safety Wednesday.

Responding to events in Minneapolis, Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon called the meeting together in an attempt to provide elected leaders some guidance about how to handle federal immigration agents, if they show up on the island.

Felici and other local leaders, however, found clarity hard to come by in regards to whether ICE maintains a presence on Whidbey, what authority the federal agency claims to have in public spaces like schools and what can be done to protect the general public.

Discussions during the nearly hour-long session grew passionate.

“When you look at the temperament of this country right now and you look at the things that are going on, we have general concerns for the citizens that live in our cities,” Oak Harbor Mayor Ronnie Wright said. “Because I have no faith in this federal administration right now. I have no faith in ICE.”

Felici confirmed that under the Keep Washington Working Act, passed in 2019, local law enforcement are restricted in enforcing federal immigration law. The Island County Sheriff’s Office, Oak Harbor Police Department, Coupeville Marshal’s Office and the Langley Police Department are therefore unable to assist ICE in any detainments or raids, even if they wanted to. He also emphasized agents cannot legally enter homes without search warrants, though he conceded that the law may not prevent federal agents from doing so these days.

He and other local leaders found clarity hard to come by since they are inadequately informed about whether ICE maintains a presence on Whidbey, what authority the federal agency claims to have in public spaces like schools and what can be done to protect the general public.

Unable to answer many of these questions, Felici and Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks only felt comfortable making what Felici called an “uncomfortable” request: that residents comply with ICE in potential encounters and deal with the legal repercussions of the agency’s actions later.

“Whether it’s at a protest, whether it’s on your front steps, whether it’s on a traffic stop, the answer is, use the rule of law in your favor,” Felici said. “Fighting and resisting the agent is not gonna end well for anybody.”

In the wake of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month, local leaders questioned how safe compliance actually is.

“Rick, ICE isn’t following the rule of law,” Coupeville Mayor Molly Hughes said to the sheriff.

Hughes, Wright and Langley Mayor Kennedy Horstman grilled Felici about law enforcement’s role in protecting citizens. That their questions dealt so heavily in hypothetical situations, Felici explained, made answering them difficult.

ICE activity “hasn’t been super dramatic” in the county, Felici reported, save for a case in Langley about a year ago. Then, an ICE raid at a Langley laundromat resulted in a man’s detainment. Last summer, federal immigration officers’ arrest of a man on Camano resulted in the man being charged with assaulting federal officers, but a jury acquitted him.

Earlier this month, residents were posting online about ICE agents being active on North Whidbey. At that time, Felici told the News-Times that the agency doesn’t let him know if they are operating in his county.

At the meeting, Felici said he contacted a regional supervisor for ICE asking to be notified if the agency plans to be active in the county, but he did not receive a response indicating their compliance with his request.

Ultimately, Felici added, there is “no response built into this system” addressing local law enforcement’s interaction with federal law enforcement operations.

Mayors of Whidbey’s three municipalities felt the uncertainty of the situation is what necessitates planning how to deal with ICE.

“We spend our lives addressing hypotheticals,” Hughes said. “We do emergency planning, that’s addressing hypotheticals. What if there’s an earthquake? What if there’s a tsunami?”

When Banks finally spoke, he pointed out that the governor and state attorney general recently had a press conference about these issues and even they couldn’t answer such questions. He said Felici’s advice to “survive the encounter” was the best guidance. Washington courts, he said, can still be relied upon, and he fears the “powder keg” of a situation in which local law enforcement and the “heavily armed” federal agents use lethal force against each other.

Separately, Felici made the point that whatever “mess” ICE makes, local law enforcement will be responsible for “cleaning up.”

Banks refrained from advising entities like schools on how to handle encounters with ICE because administrators best understand their communities and, therefore, are better equipped to make decisions which they could be liable for.

Towards the end of the session, Island County Commissioner Jill Johnson — attending remotely — acknowledged the justice system may be “flawed” but stressed the dangers of escalating ICE encounters. Compliance, she said, is the “wisdom of the table.”

Things got intense when Hughes, although understanding of the logic behind compliance, argued people could still be hurt with compliance — specifically, people of color targeted by ICE.

President Donald Trump promised mass deportations ahead of his second term.

According to NBC News, nearly 69,000 migrants are in ICE detention, 25.7% of which have criminal convictions and 48% of which are listed as “other immigration violators.” NBC approximates more than 15,000 people were deported in June alone, based on internal ICE data the outlet obtained.

Felici pushed back.

“We’re talking about people getting hurt, right? There’s different kinds of hurt, and I don’t think that is a skin color-based situation,” he said. “I mean, honestly, look at the people that have been involved in these shootings. They were white people.”

Bacon concluded the session somberly, adding that her heart breaks for Minnesota as a former resident of the state for 25 years.

“No one wants this in their own neighborhood,” she said. “We don’t have any answers and we’ll keep paying attention. We just have to be vigilant and pay attention.”

Bacon summarized the session in a post on Facebook later that afternoon, advising residents to comply with ICE and “try not to let your rightful rage overwhelm your common sense.” If confronted by ICE, the post adds, residents should prioritize their safety, call 911 and record what occurs. The post confirms that while the “sheriff will not assist ICE or border patrol,” officers “cannot interfere in activities of federal agencies. They can, however, witness.”

Whidbey Island nurses and Indivisible Whidbey planned a vigil after press time on Friday in Coupeville, honoring Pretti, an ICU nurse, and others lost to ICE violence. Additionally, some Whidbey businesses planned to participate in a nationwide shutdown — meaning no work, no school and no shopping for the day — in protest of ICE on Friday.