Seattle Council Member Eddie Lin Suggests Redirecting Surveillance Tech Funding To Immigrant Resources

As ICE’s reign of terror returns to headlines, activists demand bold and urgent action from City Hall’s new progressive bloc, including a reversal of a recent expansion to the Seattle Police Department’s surveillance capabilities for warranted fear the footage could get into the wrong hands and aid in ICE’s raids. And it turns out, Council Member Eddie Lin wasn’t fucking around when he said he opposed the expansion during his campaign last fall. 

In a statement to The Burner, Lin called on new Mayor Katie Wilson to “delay implementation” so that the City could “revisit” the decision and possibly redirect funding to help immigrant communities, rather than potentially harm them.  The issue is especially dear to Lin as the representative of the South End, home to many immigrant communities and other people caught in the Trump administration's crosshairs.

In 2024, the City established the Real Time Center, a high-tech hub that “integrates various video and data streams for enhanced analysis and investigation of crime incidents,” as put by the former Mayor’s office. The City allocated $3.1 million in the 2025-2026 budget to get it off the ground. Then, despite unambiguous public disapproval, the City Council voted to pump another $1 million into the program to put cameras in historically marginalized neighborhoods including Capitol Hill, the Central District, and near the International District. As of Wednesday afternoon, SPD's surveillance map does not show the new cameras have been implemented.

Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck, the most vocal opponent to the expansion last fall, said she still has questions about the implementation timeline and spending for the new cameras. To that end, Lin said his office requested an “update” from the Mayor to see just how much the City has spent so far. 

“We should reconsider increased data collection and consider if these millions of dollars could be much better spent on immigration defense and providing resources to our immigrant communities – residents who are sharing their fear to even leave their homes to go to school or work or the grocery store, all due to ICE’s campaign of terror,” Lin said in a statement to The Burner.

Similarly, Rinck is not just moving on from the surveillance expansion. She told The Burner she will discuss the issue with the Mayor in a meeting on Friday. Rinck said reversing the expansion would be a “meaningful thing to do” in the face of ICE’s crackdown. 

Their statements come after the Seattle Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (SAARPR) sent a letter to the City Council and the Mayor, listing three demands in the face of ICE’s escalating cruelty:

1.Stop ICE: Investigate and hold ICE agents accountable for any violations of local, state, or federal law committed within Seattle. No agency or individual should be above the law.

2.Keep ICE Out: End every form of cooperation between the City of Seattle, including police, and ICE. No more contracts, no more information sharing, no more support. This includes immediately shutting down the surveillance cameras in Capital Hill, Central District, and SODO so they can’t be used by ICE. 

3.Keep Seattle a Sanctuary City: Defend and strengthen Seattle’s Sanctuary City ordinances and policies. Oppose any attempt to weaken these protections through legislation, enforcement practices, or informal cooperation with ICE.

SAARPR told the council and the Mayor that if they did not respond and agree to their demands by the 2pm council meeting, they would come and disrupt. Unfortunately, some council members said that the email wound up in their spam folders, delaying their responses. 

Wilson did not respond to The Burner’s request for comment about SAARPR’s letter or specifically their demand to repeal the surveillance expansion. 

During her campaign she differentiated herself from the incumbent by opposing the expansion. Late last year, when cities around the state started to turn off their surveillance technology to prevent misuse by federal actors, The Burner asked Wilson if she would do the same. 

“I'm aware of the decisions by Olympia, Redmond, and other cities to turn off their surveillance cameras, and I'm going to work with immigrant rights groups and civil rights advocates to evaluate whether Seattle should also scale back or disable the surveillance expansion that was authorized by the outgoing mayor and council,” Wilson said in a statement to The Burner in December. “I'm certainly not going to allow any further expansion of surveillance without an actual independent review of their effectiveness and their impact.”

While the Mayor has not yet committed to a repeal, advocates should hear opportunity in Wilson’s words. The cameras are not inevitable and the activists at City Hall know that. After a small disruption that triggered the council president to call a 10 minute recess, activists marched out of council chambers, chanting “We’ll be back.”