Helena city commission scraps immigration resolution, citing legal risk

Exactly two months after Helena officials approved a resolution restricting local police from working with federal immigration enforcement, city commissioners voted Thursday to rescind the measure in response to legal threats from Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen.

After more than five hours of public comment and deliberation — during which nearly a hundred people testified fiercely and emotionally about local government control, budget risks, authoritarianism and democracy — Helena’s commission members scrapped the January resolution in a 4-1 vote.

Immediately after the vote, Mayor Emily Dean called for a recess after members of the public yelled “shame” and shouted profanities at the city officials. When they returned, commission members directed city attorneys to begin redrafting the resolution and invite the attorney general’s office to discuss the revised language. That motion also passed on a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Melinda Reed dissenting.

In statements Friday morning, Knudsen and Gov. Greg Gianforte welcomed the commission’s decision.

“The commissioners made the right decision voting to keep the Helena community safe,” the attorney general wrote. “This resolution should never have been passed in the first place. My office will continue to hold any jurisdictions in violation of Montana’s sanctuary city prohibition accountable.”

“In Montana,” Gianforte wrote in a Facebook post, “we banned sanctuary cities to keep our cities safe. The City of Helena made the right decision to rescind its resolution and allow the Helena Police Department to continue its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

Tensions during the special meeting, held in the Helena Civic Center auditorium to accommodate the larger crowd, stayed high throughout the night, after Natasha P. Jones, an outside attorney whom the city hired to consult on the legality of the resolution, recommended that the commission rescind the entire measure passed earlier this year.

Among other reasons, Jones cited the financial risk posed by fines laid out in a 2021 Montana law banning sanctuary cities and ongoing litigation expenses that could stack up during a state investigation. In a February cease-and-desist letter, Knudsen directed the city to turn over correspondence and other records related to the resolution, and said he would pursue legal action if the city remained noncompliant with the state law.

The majority of public commenters on Thursday rejected the idea that the resolution made Helena a “sanctuary city,” and urged city officials to keep the resolution in place.

Several frustrated proponents of the resolution described the tactics of Knudsen and Gianforte, who helped announce the state’s investigation of its capital city, as “bullying” and “extortion.”

“I don’t believe rescinding this resolution will restore power to the city. I think it will give, again, all the power to the attorney general and the governor in this case,” said Barbara Chillcott, a Helena resident and attorney who began her comments by reading an excerpt from “On Tyranny,” an anti-authoritarianism book. “This resolution represents not only an appropriate exercise of local government authority. It also represents, importantly, the values of this community,” Chillcott added.

Other members of the public urged the commission to listen to state leaders, and to avoid drawing Helena further into a political feud.

“We are witnessing tonight a sad waste of the city’s time and finances,” said Michael Wells, an opponent of the resolution. “I would recommend, obviously, that you better rescind this. And two, that you just let it go, and get about your business of building our city as a great place to live.”

In explaining her recommendation to rescind the policy, Jones said that, while Montana’s law banning sanctuary cities had not been litigated, the policy is similar to others in Texas and Florida that had been upheld as constitutional. Further, Jones said that Helena was at risk for expensive penalties and the burdensome cost of a lawsuit if it does not come into compliance with the state’s demands.

Jones said she did not think that state officials would be open to further attempts to amend the resolution without consultation.

“The problem is, it is the opinion of the AG and the governor that is on the other side of the table,” Jones said. “And so, it is, in my view, a waste of resources and an improper process to go about trying to revise without our partner across the table.”

The penalties under state law include fines of $10,000 for every five days the city is found to be out of compliance, which Jones said could be counted as the day the city passed the resolution in January. Additionally, Jones said the law indicates that uncooperative cities could lose future public grant dollars and have funding for commerce and infrastructure projects compromised. The city of Helena’s financial director, Sheila Danielson, told commissioners that the city had roughly $14 million in state and federal funding in the last fiscal year.

“The four members of the commission who voted to rescind the resolution — Dean and commissioners Sean Logan, Julia Gustafson and Ben Rigby — expressed varying degrees of consternation about the decision.”

“It’s been a very impressive display of public engagement,” Logan said, addressing the remaining audience members just before 11 p.m. Ultimately, Logan explained, “I think we do have a lot to risk here. And there is a lot of financial risk in front of us.”

Dean, who campaigned on pledges to be a pragmatic, thoughtful mayor, expressed frustration with the entire circumstance.

“We are being baited into a fight that is rigged,” Dean said, adding that the vote to rescind had consequences far beyond Helena’s local budget.

“I will be honest. This has been infuriating,” Dean said. “I am more concerned than ever about the state overreach and telling Montana communities what they can and can’t think, the values they can and can’t have.”

Reed, who cast the lone vote against the motion to rescind, tried to convince her fellow members to double down on the January resolution.

“There’s been a lot of debate about financial issues, and I just have to ask myself, ‘What is the price point for maintaining our rights, for maintaining local control?’” Reed said shortly before the vote. “I’m not sure I can put a number on that. I think most importantly, listening tonight and listening to my gut, I will not be governed by fear and I will not govern with fear.”

The January passage of Helena’s immigration resolution came after months of organizing from members of the public who had called on their local elected officials to take a stand against the Trump administration’s push for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ramp up arrests of undocumented immigrants.

The nationwide immigration crackdown had local implications. In July of last year, ICE detained Christopher Martinez Marvan, a Mexican citizen who had lived and worked in Helena since 2008 with his wife and children. Martinez Marvan was stopped by Helena police and federal immigration enforcement during a search for two unrelated Venezuelan men.

Since that event, community members, lawyers, teachers, parents and immigration advocates continuously pressured the city to take action and implement a resolution that ensures Helena police officers don’t land in the same situation again.

The resolution the commission passed in January specifically states that the Helena Police Department is not to enter into a federal partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement known as a 287(g) agreement and not to disclose a person’s place of birth, immigration status or national origin, except when required by law or upon a valid court order. Additionally, the resolution calls on Helena police to “request” federal immigration officers to remove any masks and identify themselves when they feel it won’t interfere with federal actions.

In his cease and desist letter, Knudsen directed the city to explain how the resolution complies with state law.

The letter specifically identifies two sections of the resolution that Knudsen said interfere with Montana’s sanctuary prohibition. Several public commenters on Thursday pointed to those parts of the letter as evidence that the city did not need to rescind the resolution in its entirety.

Although the commission decided to roll back its policy, Reed described amendments she had drafted that would have changed language to address specific state law conflicts identified in the attorney general’s letter.

But Jones said that amending the resolution alone wouldn’t remedy the state’s reasons for investigating Helena.

“(T)hey will find additional and new problems with any amended language that you try to draft,” Jones said. “That is not a good use of our time. Instead, we should draw them to the table and see if they will talk to us about this. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But we won’t know until we try. And that is the better use of public dollars here, in my view.”

Thursday evening’s meeting drew more than 200 people in person and about 175 online at peak participation and several hours of public comment. Roughly a dozen people advocated to rescind the resolution. Others supported minor alterations or endorsed the resolution in its existing form. Some members of the public simply acknowledged that city commissioners faced a difficult choice.

Jones said that once the city has rescinded its current resolution and no longer face an investigation threat, city leaders could negotiate with the state and aim to create a different resolution that would not raise the ire of Knudsen or Gianforte.

The commission members directed city attorneys to update them on the outreach to the attorney general within 30 days.

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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.