Covington residents called upon the city commission to protect immigrant residents and programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, often shortened to DEI, at the commission’s legislative meeting on Tuesday.
The comments reflect fears that have been expressed in the region in the wake of promises of mass deportations from the new presidential administration, as well as the slashing of federal projects aimed at helping marginalized communities.
“Criminalizing our community will always bring harm, not help,” said resident Samuel Phillips.
Phillips was one of two speakers who spoke out during the meeting’s public comment section. He had made similar comments to the commission two weeks prior, focusing primarily on the city’s potential relationship with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. He made reference to Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which allows “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to delegate to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform specified immigration officer functions under the agency’s direction and oversight,” according to ICE’s website.
“Not only do these practices promote prejudice but are costly to the community, due to its ease to violate civil liberties,” Phillips said. “I have seen and felt this in Denver, and I have seen and felt this in Seattle. I had seen and felt this in Vancouver, [British Columbia] and unfortunately, Covington – our darling, Covington – is not immune.”
Melissa Kelley, the chair of the Eastside + neighborhood association, which represents the interests of the city’s Eastside neighborhood, spoke about worries that changes at the federal level would jeopardize DEI funding, especially as it related to the funding local projects, which sometimes rely on federal dollars.
“There’s concern among our residents about directives by the federal government concerning DEI initiatives and programs,” Kelley said.
She added that the current efforts to route such programs were, in her view, based on an “idiotic and, I believe, deliberate misreading of the intent behind these programs, and that this hostility, along with threats of withholding funding or other federal support might lead Covington’s government to abandon or lessen its efforts in the furtherance of inclusion in our city.”
Mayor Ron Washington did not address these concerns during the public comment section, but he took some time at the end of the meeting to discuss the issue of inclusivity as a whole.
He pointed to a public conversation he’d had recently with Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval about the future of DEI policies under the Trump administration. He also discussed the various policies the city had enacted in the past to ensure the city was welcoming to everyone, such as the passage of a Fairness Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination based on one’s sexuality, as well as the passage of a local version of the Crown Act, which prohibits discrimination based on hair style and texture.
“This city has a record of being inclusive,” Washington said, “and that’s what makes Covington Covington.”
The other commissioners did not speak on the matter during the meeting, and Washington declined to comment further when asked about any specific policies related to ICE or immigration.
Covington’s police department is not currently listed as a partner agency or pending partner agency on ICE’s website.
Furthermore, a city spokesperson confirmed with LINK nky at the meeting that the local police do not deal with immigration matters and that currently the city has not agreement with ICE or policy on the books related to the agency. The only exception, he said, would be if a federal agency had a specific warrant for a specific crime, as they have in the past, but generally speaking, he said, immigration enforcement was “not our role.”