Activists push Phoenix City Council to ban ICE staging on public property

Phoenix considers banning ICE agents from operating on city property

The Phoenix City Council is considering an initiative regarding ICE operations on city property. FOX 10's Ashlie Rodriguez learns more about the community transparency initiative.

PHOENIX - A debate remains ongoing at the Phoenix City Council on March 25 over an initiative regarding ICE operations on city property.

What we know:

Activist organization Poder in Action led Wednesday's effort, having brought dozens of people to lobby the council during a public comment period. They are asking for the council to vote in favor of the Community Transparency Initiative, banning agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from staging their operations on city property, excluding Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

What they're saying:

Immigrant advocates say in the past, ICE agents will park in city lots and use public parks to coordinate, and they want the City of Phoenix to fight back.

What is not clear is if this initiative has any teeth, and if the City of Phoenix even has the authority to kick ICE off its property.

"[There are] plenty of cities that have passed policy like this, so make the federal government tell you that you can’t do this," said Ricardo Reyes, executive director of VetsForward. "Let them take you to court and have a judge [decide] what you can and can’t do, because we prefer that the city pushes and tries to protect their citizens and go beyond the scope what they thought was possible. Then we find out—oh we could do some of these things, maybe we thought we could do more than we thought we could—rather than just capitulating to the federal government."