By the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office
Reports of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers being present at the Sandpiper Apartments at 250 Tucker Ave on July 7, detaining one individual, and taking them away started coming in around 7:50 am. The call notes report that a silver SUV (later found to possibly be a GMC Acadia) and a black SUV with people in masks and vests that said ICE., detained a male, and left the location. The Sheriff’s Office received confirmation that at least two people saw ICE on the vests of the people involved.
Several calls by the Sheriff’s Office to the listed number for the ICE Seattle Field Office requesting information and confirmation of the male detained only resulted in one unknown person stating that all they could confirm was that there was “an encounter” in Friday Harbor, but would not give out any other information. Every time a request was made to talk to a supervisor at the Seattle Field Office, they kept saying they couldn’t connect us directly to someone and provided an email to contact them.
Based on the information we have at this time, it does appear ICE has detained a Friday Harbor male and the Sheriff’s Office will not publicly disclose his name out of respect to the family who is aware of this situation. A call was made to the ICE Tacoma Northwest Detention Center and all they could tell us was they did not have this individual in their facility at this time. (ICE Tacoma Northwest Detention Center (253) 396-1611). The child who was apparently at the apartment for visitation with the father was returned to the mother, where the child resides.
The following are a few facts to share with the community:
1. ICE doesn’t have to contact local law enforcement and won’t contact local law enforcement when they are coming to the island.
2. The Sheriff’s Office is prohibited from and does not participate in immigration enforcement, RCW 10.93.160.
3. The Sheriff’s Office cannot and will not interfere with or hinder another law enforcement agency’s lawful investigations.
4. We will take any information such as we received today on face value; however, we will do our due diligence to try and confirm the information the best we can before issuing any statements.
