WTAE

Jan 28, 2025

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said during an event in Harrisburg Monday that his administration will not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Our news partners at the Trib said Gainey’s comments come amid heightened concerns from local immigrant communities about ICE raids.

“My administration will not work with ICE,” Gainey said during a Pennsylvania Press Club event Monday. “We will do whatever’s necessary to make our city more welcoming. That’s what we’re built on.”

President Donald Trump has issued “quotas for the immigration enforcement agency to ramp up arrests,” the Trib said, attributing the Washington Post. Trump’s remarks include enforcement at schools and other “sensitive sites.”

“ICE is not going to end the situation of a failed immigration policy — it’s not going to do it,” Gainey said. “What it’s going to do is create more situations where people feel scared, where people don’t feel safe, where people will do things that they normally wouldn’t do.

“If the federal government wants to be serious about what they want to do to reform the immigration law, then they need to create a pathway to citizenship.”

Vanessa Caruso, a Pittsburgh-based immigration attorney, told the Trib that she has been taking calls “all day, every day” from people who are worried about ICE actions.

“The concern is real,” she said to the Trib, and it’s growing as the Trump administration looks to crack down on immigration.

Gainey’s press secretary, Olga George, said in a statement to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 on Monday evening that the city was unaware of any ICE raids.

“Currently, the city of Pittsburgh has no evidence of ICE activity occurring within city limits and has not been asked to assist the agency in any way,” the statement said. “ICE is a federal law enforcement agency that works outside of city control. Public Safety and the Bureau of Police will adhere to bureau policies.”

According to the Trib, the policy says city police are unable to arrest someone just to investigate their immigration status.

In a statement posted to the @PGHController X account on Tuesday, City Controller Rachael Heisler said, in part, “The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police has long upheld a policy of not arresting or detaining people solely to investigate immigration status. PBP officers are not immigration agents, and enforcing federal civil immigration warrants is not the job they’re trained to do.

“Pittsburgh police will follow procedure for criminal warrants regardless of immigration status. But under current PBP policy, police do not arrest or detain people based on civil immigration or administrative warrants in NCIC.”