
The evidence was there, buried in tens of thousands of pages of documents: Local law enforcement agencies were failing to comply with Washington state law protecting immigrant rights. To prove it, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) needed to find the signal in the noise.
That was right in the wheelhouse of Information School faculty and students. Several of them were part of a campus-wide research collaboration that produced showing that, contrary to the law鈥檚 stated purpose, local police and jails remain a pipeline to immigration enforcement and deportation.
The rights of undocumented immigrants are supposed to be shielded under 2019鈥檚 Keep Washington Working law, which prohibits law enforcement agencies from detaining people based on their immigration status or sharing information about them with federal authorities unless required by a court order. In practice, the law has so far been applied inconsistently, the UWCHR report stated. While some local agencies have quickly adapted, others continue to alert federal agents when they encounter someone they suspect is undocumented. Information continues to flow passively, as well, through databases that are shared between local law enforcement and agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
After receiving anecdotal reports of deportations originating from routine interactions such as traffic stops, the UWCHR requested thousands of emails and arrest records under the Freedom of Information Act. Researchers dug into the records in 13 of the state鈥檚 39 counties to see if they could detect patterns of practices that circumvent the law, UWCHR Director said. Even in limiting their research to those counties, they faced a massive undertaking.

鈥淲e immediately realized the research was important, but the question was, how do you do research on such a broad scope?鈥 Godoy said.
iSchool researchers, led by Associate Professor Ricardo Gomez, brought their ideas to the project about how to parse the data that the UWCHR was able to pull from the records. Once they cleaned up and organized the text, they analyzed it for trends. They looked at who was seeking information from whom, who was sharing information with whom, and the mechanisms for information sharing between local officials and immigration officials.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of noise, there鈥檚 a lot of repetition, there鈥檚 a lot of redundancy, and it鈥檚 not necessarily in any particular order,鈥 Gomez said. 鈥淪o you need an information management process to deal with the large volume of information to make any meaning of it.鈥
鈥淭here is abundant evidence of continuing collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement.鈥
What they found was sometimes surprisingly brazen disregard for the law, Gomez said. Some sheriffs in rural counties have even stated their unwillingness to comply.
鈥淭here is abundant evidence of continuing collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement,鈥 he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 amazing that there is such a strong paper trail left behind in emails. I鈥檓 sure now that the report is published, agencies will say they are changing their policies, but it鈥檚 also possible they will continue to collaborate and hide their tracks better.鈥

iSchool doctoral student Yubing Tian focused her work on Grant County, doing a deep dive into more than 8,000 pages of emails and several hundred arrest records. Tian said she was surprised by how often local officials would proactively refer people to immigration authorities, sharing personal information in a way that the law now forbids.
鈥淲e found multiple instances where a local official would say, 鈥楬ey I came across this person. You should look into them. Here鈥檚 their date of birth and screen shots from the Department of Licensing database,'鈥 Tian said.
Gomez鈥檚 and Tian鈥檚 work was part of a broad effort involving community partners with the UWCHR鈥檚 and faculty and students from across the university, including the center鈥檚 project coordinator, Phil Neff; the School of Law; the Department of Sociology; UW Bothell; the Department of Law, Societies & Justice; and the Jackson School of International Studies. iSchool faculty members Bob Boiko, Marika Cifor and Megan Finn consulted on the project, and doctoral student Ana Bennett helped analyze email and arrest records. Numerous iSchool Master of Library and Information Science students participated in analyzing the data and looking for trends, earning credit in Gomez鈥檚 course on information and social justice.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a valuable learning opportunity for them to do social justice work with an information angle, to apply information science skills and library science skills to real-world problems that further and support social justice,鈥 Gomez said.
Despite gaps in compliance, the report notes that Washington has made progress in its efforts to support the rights of undocumented immigrants. Many county agencies immediately changed their policies and several agencies have taken corrective measures after learning they had staff who weren鈥檛 following the law. Researchers will continue to monitor and defend the rights of the estimated 240,000 undocumented immigrants in Washington, Godoy said.
鈥淗opefully a year or two after the law has passed, we鈥檇 start to see more institutionalization of compliance,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to do more research and see if the trend lines of that first report continue.鈥