Head of WA State DOL Under Fire for Sharing Information with ICE Officials

According to a KOMO 4 News report (April 17, 2018) - Demonstrators say they feel hurt and deceived by their own government, which they say betrayed the trust of undocumented workers.

They want the DOL director Pat Kohler to quit in the wake of the agency sharing information with the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), despite an executive order from Governor Jay Inslee telling the state agency to not fully cooperated with ICE unless there's a court order.

The department said it's now re-thinking their protocol in gathering and distributing social security numbers.

According to a report from January of this year, "the Washington state Department of Licensing said it will no longer release personal information to federal immigration authorities without a court order..."

It appears that DOL continued to provide information to ICE without the need for a court order. The question here is whether agencies, such as DOL, should share information collected for one purpose (driver's licensing) with agencies such as ICE for law enforcement purposes in the absence of a court order.

Nobody is saying that we should disregard our immigration laws (well, some may be saying this), rather that in order to collect information about individuals for law enforcement purposes, the police should obtain a warrant our other applicable court order before accessing those records.