By Alia Sinclair

During Tuesday Night’s (Feb. 10, 2026) meeting, the SeaTac City Council passed a motion to suspend the rules and enacted a land use moratorium that prohibits the federal government from the creation of new or expansion of existing detention centers within the city of SeaTac.

The motion came as the result of the city being alerted that the federal government is currently looking for property in South King County or Seattle to locate a new immigration detention facility.

SeaTac is already home to one federal detention center. City Manager Jonathan Young stated to the council, “It is highly likely an expansion of [federal detention facilities in SeaTac] would be incompatible with the safety needs of our community.”

After passing the motion to suspend the rules, the council voted unanimously to pass the Ordinance enacting the land use Moratorium. The ordinance is as follows:

Ordinance #26-1004 enacting a Moratorium on the change of use, establishment, or development of facilities for the detention, transportation, and food services for people detained by local, state, or federal law enforcement; setting a public hearing; declaring an emergency; and establishing an effective date was adopted and became effective February 10, 2026.

Additionally, the council continued the discussion on how to handle SeaTac’s FLOCK camera system amid safety and privacy concerns.

The council faces the challenge of balancing the effective use of FLOCK to keep residents safe with the possibility of the system being used to compromise the safety of SeaTac residents, including that of the large immigrant community in the city.

City Manager Young requested direction and presented two options to the council on how to proceed:

  • Option 1: Require all cities or entities who wish to partner with SeaTac’s FLOCK system to sign a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for data sharing created by the city of SeaTac and not to partner with any city or entity who refuses to do so.
  • Option 2: Completely pause all use of the FLOCK system in the city of SeaTac while awaiting the legislative decision at the state level for Senate Bill 6002 regarding the use and storage of license plate data.

Councilmember Joe Vinson made a motion to suspend the rules in order to add a third option. The motion passed, putting a third option on the table; 3: limit the use of FLOCK to only the City of SeaTac while awaiting the decision on Senate Bill 6002.

When voting on what direction to give the City Manager, a majority was not reached on which option to proceed with. A second vote was taken eliminating Option One, and only voting on Options Two and Three. A majority was reached with the second vote, with Option Three as the winner.

In light of the option chosen by council, the Chief of Police was directed to immediately take action to restrict FLOCK access to only the city of SeaTac with the understanding that the topic would be revisited after the decision has been made at the state level on Senate Bill 6002.