In Split Vote, Indio Council Votes To Formally Request Information From DHS About Detained Residents

The Indio City Council Wednesday voted 3-2 to have the city attorney draft a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of the council to get information about residents taken into custody by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this year as part of ongoing federal immigration enforcement actions.

“We don’t know how many of our residents are missing,” Councilmember Oscar Ortiz, who brought the item forward, said at the December 3 meeting. “I think that’s important.”

The goal, he said, was to get information from DHS about how many Indio residents had been taken into custody, their immigration status, the crimes they had been charged with, how long they had spent in detention centers and the outcome of their cases, including information about anyone who had been deported and where they had been sent.

“I think that will help us understand what’s going on in our community and be ready for the impacts that are happening to our families out here,” he said.

Mayor Elaine Holmes and Councilmember Miller voted against the motion. Both said they felt the action was outside of the scope of the city, which has no oversight of federal immigration actions.

“It’s not our jurisdiction,” Miller said. “Our obligation is to the residents of the city of Indio and to make sure that we have the protection under our guidance and what is under our ability to do something.”

City Manager Bryan Montgomery echoed their concerns and said it was his recommendation that the council focus on things that are within the city’s local jurisdiction.

“It’s not illegal for you to direct us to provide that letter or for you to write the letter,” he said. “But my recommendation is that we stay within the lane of local government, the state stay within the lane of state government and the federal government stay within the lane of federal government.”

Mayor Pro Tem Waymond Fermon pushed back against that assertion, however, saying that the information would ensure proper accountability and oversight of federal actions in the city, maintain public safety by decreasing fear, provide community organizations with the information they need to make service decisions, support data-driven policy decisions, protect the civil rights of Indio residents, prevent profiling and overreach and increase transparency and trust with the city’s most vulnerable communities.

“It’s about good governance,” he said. “It’s about protecting our residents, all of them, and ensuring Indio remains a community where families feel safe and businesses can thrive, and our future is built on dignity.”

Holmes and Miller said that individual council members were free to file FOIA requests in their capacity as elected officials without bringing the entire city into the fray, but Fermon said he had filed a request about three weeks prior and had received no response.

Ortiz said that in talking with U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in the city, he was told that a FOIA request coming from the city, instead of an individual, was more likely to get a response.

Those who spoke at the meeting, including TODEC Executive Director Luz Gallegos, urged the council to take the step of formally requesting information from DHS.

“I am here to ask for a vote of transparency, a vote of conscience for all city of Indio residents and stakeholders,” Gallegos said. “We truly believe that information is power and data guides us to plan ahead and make concise decisions, not only for our city [and] its residents, but for our businesses, our schools and any local stakeholder.”

In other council action: Ahead of the meeting, the council selected Mayor Pro Tem Elaine Holmes to serve as mayor and Councilmember Waymond Fermon to serve as mayor pro tem for the next year.