Who needs an Immigrant Resource Center if Bellingham is free of discrimination and its harms? / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the screenshot of a portion of a Bellingham City Council Agenda bill for their June 9, 2025 meeting to view the whole document on the COB website

June 8, 2025 Dena Jensen

Bellingham City Council is scheduled to consider a proposed resolution reaffirming the “City of Bellingham as a welcoming city” for all people on Monday, June 9, 2025. After the draft resolution recites a long list of COB measures that have been taken over the last few years that can help allow the City to incrementally become a more welcoming place for marginalized community members, the following statement in the operative section is included:

“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City of Bellingham is a welcoming city for all people to live, work, attend school, visit and play free of discrimination, violence and systemic barriers that threaten their safety, well-being and human rights;”

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Second meeting tomorrow of Bellingham work group examining if police actions could aid ICE / Noisy Waters Northwest

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May 14, 2025 Dena Jensen

Coming up tomorrow, Thursday 5/15/25 at 5:30 p.m is the second meeting of Bellingham’s Keep Washington Working Act Work Group. There is currently only one way for community members to witness these meetings and that is in person at Bellingham City Hall, 210 Lottie St., Suite 227. There is no Zoom option available, no recordings being made, and no minutes have been posted yet from the work group’s first meeting in March. After tomorrow’s meeting, the work group won’t likely meet again until July, since their proposed schedule of meetings is every two months. The only point of contact provided for the work group is the Bellingham Mayor’s Office.

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Bellingham officials promote dissolving immigrant board, defying approved motion and next steps / Noisy Waters Northwest

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https://noisywatersnw.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/next-steps-3.pdf
https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=3112&doctype=2

October 7, 2024. Dena Jensen
How can we expect law enforcement to adhere to their documented intentions for just treatment of marginalized community members when other City officials, in an effort to try to ensure they do, can’t follow and adhere to theirs?

Tonight, Monday October 7, Bellingham City Council will be voting for a final time at their 7:00 p.m. meeting on whether to dissolve the Immigration Advisory Board. So far, the vote has been 4-2-1 to get rid of the board. This action will be the final matter of business for Council tonight.

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Chapter One: What IAB members had to say – An imposition of indignity, the tale and trail of Bellingham’s immigration board suspension ordinance / Noisy Waters Northwest

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September 28, 2024 Dena Jensen

Link to ‘Introduction – An imposition of indignity: the tale and trail of Bellingham’s immigration board suspension ordinance’ : https://noisywatersnw.com/2024/02/23/introduction-an-imposition-of-indignity-the-tale-and-trail-of-bellinghams-immigration-board-suspension-ordinance-noisy-waters-northwest/

Chapter One

First, some fresh news

Bellingham City Council Member Hannah Stone will be presenting an ordinance at Monday’s City Council, September 30, 2024 Committee of the Whole meeting, that would dissolve the Immigration Advisory Board. People can attend the meeting which starts at 1:00 p.m., and the topic of dissolving the board is also on the agenda for the Council’s regular meeting at 7:00 p.m that night.

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New Searchable Minutes for Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board and an update on Mayor’s upcoming update / Noisy Waters Northwest

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September 1, 2024

First things first

Here is a link to a document that allows readers to search and browse minutes for all meeting dates of the three and a half years of Bellingham City Council’s Immigration Advisory Board:

June 2020 through January 2024 Immigration Advisory Board Meeting Minutes

[Note: the links were corrected above because the first document linked to was missing content]

Also, folks can also access these minutes, along with other year-long searchable versions of local government meeting minutes, along with details on how to interact with them, on this website’s Searchable Minutes page.

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All hands on deck to support immigrants too / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the annotated screen shot of a portion of the August 5, 2024 Riveters Collective newsletter to access the original and complete newsletter on a browser

August 11, 2024 Dena Jensen

Last week, the Riveters Collective, an organization which “promotes effective progressive civic action in Whatcom County and neighboring communities,” sent out a newsletter containing a call to action to contact Bellingham officials requesting a progress update this month regarding the Immigration Advisory Board. Contact information was provided where people can reach officials.

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Evidence update on Immigration Advisory Board information void and Police Chief remarks / Noisy Waters Northwest

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July 24, 2024 Dena Jensen

For the last six and a half months, the majority of my research and writing time has been focused on matters leading up to and including the Bellingham City Council’s February 2024 suspension of their Immigration Advisory Board’s meetings.

It may look a little like a lonely obsession at this point. There isn’t much material in local media or public government conversations about the sidelined body which had 8 of its 12 seats filled at the time meetings were halted, with 7 of those 8 positions being filled by people of color.

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‘Things are trying to suppress it, right?’: 2021 Camp 210 sweep letter from Immigration Advisory Board, a year-long timeline / Noisy Waters Northwest

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Click the image of various annotated pages of Bellingham Immigration Advisory Board minutes to view a selection of individual pages

June 19, 2024 Dena Jensen

“Things are trying to suppress it, right?” That was a remark made by a Bellingham City Council Member to the City’s Immigration Advisory Board members back in 2021. The context and specific timing will be made clear later in this post, but the question evokes an atmosphere of oppression that too many members of marginalized communities dwell within.  

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More flaws in case made against Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board / Noisy Waters Northwest

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May 20, 2024 Dena Jensen

When government officials make a statement claiming something happened, when information available in public records shows it didn’t happen, it’s a reason for concern. When such instances of faulty statements start to stack up in the officials’ process of targeting a group focused on removing dangers from a specific marginalized community, I’d say there’s good reason for folks to be as alarmed as they can be about it.

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Introduction – An imposition of indignity: the tale and trail of Bellingham’s immigration board suspension ordinance / Noisy Waters Northwest

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February 23, 2024 Dena Jensen
[This introduction was corrected with information on March 20, 2024. The corrected section is noted below within the relevant section of the introduction to this series. It is placed in brackets, in italics, with the date that the correction was made.]

It took less than one minute at the end of the Bellingham City Council’s February 12, 2024 regular meeting for Council Members’ final consideration of an ordinance to suspend the City’s Immigration Advisory Board. The ordinance was approved 6-1, with recently elected, first-term City Council Member Jace Cotton casting the only dissenting vote.

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