March 22, 2024 Dena Jensen
We have passed the second month now that community members, who have been serving on Bellingham’s Immigration Advisory Board, have not been allowed to meet to continue their work to request and analyze data to determine compliance with the Keep Washington Working Act, along with facilitating community involvement and discussions on regional immigration issues.
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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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September 30, 2022 Community to Community Development
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 09/30/2022
WHATCOM DEMOCRATS PASS RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT CITY FUNDED IMMIGRANT RESOURCE CENTER
As city council prepares to draft the 2023-2024 biennial budget, community demand for immigrant resource center grows
On Saturday September 24th, The Whatcom Democrats voted 58-0 to pass a resolution encouraging the city of ellingham to fund an immigrant resource center. This comes as Mayor Fleetwood is preparing to propose a biennial budget to city council on October 24th, 2022.
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November 3, 2021 Dena Jensen
It’s been almost three months since I made a blog post about City of Ferndale permits being issued and/or processed for an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office on the business property of Mahmoud Boulos in Ferndale. I have done some more research recently and have additional details to share about this office that is hiding in plain sight in Whatcom County, at 1380 and 1390 Commerce Place in Ferndale.
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January 24, 2020 Dena Jensen’
This morning Community to Community Development issued the following call to action on their Facebook page:
**ACTION ALERT***
Around 8 am this morning a family was pulled over by ICE in Everson on their way to take their children to daycare. We know that at this time at least the man is in custody, but it is unknown where in Whatcom County he is being held. We are asking all of our supporters to make calls to Customs and Border Patrol to demand the release of this father and community member. Please call all three numbers and let them know that it is unacceptable to apprehend and detain members of our community.
CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL OFFICES
Ferndale (360) 380-0408
Sumas (360) 988-5520
Lynden (360) 988-2971 Continue reading
August 20, 2019 Dena Jensen
Last night’s Bellingham City Council meeting provided a pretty good lesson in what white fragility does – and doesn’t – look like. To the majority of the Council Member’s credit that night, most of them did not seem to exhibit “discomfort and defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted by information about racial inequality and injustice,” which is the definition of white fragility offered by Oxford’s Lexico dictionary. But a couple of them did.
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August 16, 2019 Dena Jensen
This is the final installment of notes on the July 15, 2019 Bellingham City Council Justice Committee meeting regarding immigration issues. The next Justice Committee meeting will occur this Monday, August 19, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. in Council chambers. Here is a link for the agenda for that meeting https://meetings.cob.org/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=2059&doctype=1
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July 27, 2019 Dena Jensen
One of the great election-related services that the Riveters Collective — which organizes and supports actions in Whatcom County and local communities — offers to our community, is their Ask Me Anything (AMA) events on Facebook, where members of their Facebook group can ask questions to find out what they want to know about candidates running for office during election season.
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July 21, 2019 Dena Jensen
Due to my own time constraints and a desire to get some information out about this as promptly as I can, I am going to provide my notes in installments, on this July 15, 2019 meeting where Bellingham City Council’s Justice Committee discussed work-plan items related to immigration.
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July 17, 2019 Dena Jensen
On Monday, July 15, 2019, Bellingham City Council’s Justice Committee met in Council Chambers at City Hall, with their one focus being, “Deliberation Regarding Work-Plan Items Related to Immigration.” I will work on publishing notes on this meeting soon. But first, I did want to draw people’s attention to a particular statement of City Council Member April Barker’s at that meeting. Council Member Barker serves on the Justice Committee, with Council Member Pinky Vargas, along with Council Member and Justice Committee Chair Hannah Stone.
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noisy waters northwest 
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