SPOKANE — Immigration officers must have a warrant to enter a permitted event on most public property in Spokane if organizers request protection and go through the proper steps to receive it, the city council voted Monday.
The law, which went through months of delays to satisfy the concerns of enough council members to pass, did not come soon enough this summer to save Tacos and Tequila, an annual event celebrating Spokane’s Latino community that would have typically taken place last weekend on a closed city street downtown but was canceled for fear of targeted raids by immigration officials.
“We just don’t feel like it’s safe right now to hold a Latino festival because we are being targeted right now,” said Fernanda Mazcot, executive director of Nuestras Raices Community Center, when t