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  • A three-year ban on puppy breeding in Philly is likely to become law | City Council roundup

    A three-year ban on puppy breeding in Philly is likely to become law | City Council roundup

    A three-year ban on puppy breeding in Philadelphia is likely to become law after City Council members on Thursday passed a bill to relieve overcrowded animal shelters.

    Lawmakers unanimously approved legislation to institute a three-year moratorium on puppy breeding in the city, a ban that applies to all breeders except those that have a state kennel license or are breeding service dogs.

    The bill now heads to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s desk. If she signs the bill and it becomes law, the moratorium will take effect 90 days later.

    Also on Thursday, a Council member amended his legislation that would allow lawmakers to keep their jobs while running for another office — but there are exceptions.

    Here’s what happened during Thursday’s meeting.

    What was today’s highlight?

    Tightening the leash on backyard breeders: The bill was authored by Councilmember Cindy Bass, a Democrat who represents parts of North and Northwest Philadelphia.

    Bass was sick and absent from Council on Thursday, but she has previously said that her bill is aimed at limiting people from breeding more puppies than they can sell.

    “Every litter means more dogs in our shelter, more cost for taxpayers, and more suffering that we can prevent,” Bass said last year. “This isn’t about punishment; it’s about compassion and responsibility.”

    Under the bill, it would be illegal to sell puppies or post ads to sell them within city limits. Breeders who violate the moratorium could face a $1,000 fine, with the proceeds going to the city’s Animal Care and Control Team, also known as ACCT Philly. The animal control agency would also enforce the ban.

    A Philly lawmaker has proposed a ‘temporary moratorium’ on puppy breeding

    Sammi Craven, a local animal welfare advocate, testified Thursday about overcrowding at ACCT Philly’s North Philadelphia shelter. She named the dogs that were recently euthanized or are scheduled to be put down: Stella, Cheese Burrito, Luna, and Muffin, among others.

    “Philadelphia’s current animal welfare policy is ineffective,” Craven said, “and infrastructure and prevention have not kept pace with intake.”

    In this 2022 file photo, Brian Martin, 31, and Vanessa Green, 29, look at their new dog they plan to adopt while Green holds Autumn, 1, at ACCT Philly, which was hosting a pet adoption event.

    Critics of the moratorium say it will be challenging to enforce and could harm smaller, responsible breeders as opposed to those already operating illegally.

    Charley Hall, a government relations official with the American Kennel Club, called on Council to hold the bill and establish a working group to draft new regulations.

    “Working together, we can stop the flow of irresponsible breeders and improve animal welfare and fewer dogs ending up in Philadelphia’s shelters,” Hall said. “The question is how to achieve that goal in a way that is effective, fair, and legally sound.”

    What else happened today?

    Resign to run gets amended: City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas has been trying for more than a year to pass legislation amending a rule that requires city employees quit their jobs to run for higher office.

    He’s attempting to amend the rule so that city officeholders can keep their jobs only if they are running for a state or federal office. That means Council members running for mayor would still have to give up their seats.

    Councilmember Isaiah Thomas makes a statement at the start of a hearing last week.

    But Thomas has run into roadblocks, including opposition from the city’s Board of Ethics, which asked him to make changes to the legislation in December, just before it appeared poised to pass.

    On Thursday, he introduced an amendment that made a series of tweaks, including clarifying that sitting city officeholders may only run for one public office in any election.

    Jordana Greenwald, general counsel for the city’s Board of Ethics, testified that the board still has concerns and requested more amendments, including prohibiting certain forms of politicking in the workplace.

    She also said the legislation should clarify that the mayor can’t run for another office while serving as the city’s chief executive, a rule that is already enumerated elsewhere in the city charter.

    Philly City Council is advancing legislation to let members keep their jobs while running for Congress

    However, making additional amendments could require Thomas re the legislation entirely. He said he would prefer for the bill to be called up for a final vote next week.

    Amending the resign-to-run rule requires changing the city’s Home Rule Charter, meaning voters would have to approve it through a ballot question. Voters have rejected earlier attempts to repeal resign-to-run.

    Codifying the youth watchdog: Council members also approved legislation to make the city’s Office of the Youth Ombudsperson permanent.

    The office was created through an executive order signed by former Mayor Jim Kenney and is responsible for monitoring child welfare, juvenile justice, and behavioral health residential placement facilities in the city.

    Making the office permanent also requires an amending the charter. A ballot question is likely to appear in the May primary election.

    Quote of the week

    Councilmember Jim Harrity in Council Chambers in September 2025.

    That was Councilmember Jim Harrity, an Irish Catholic who in a speech Thursday honored the sacrifices made during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

  • ‘Courage is contagious.’ How Philadelphia churches and neighborhood groups are preparing to confront ICE.

    ‘Courage is contagious.’ How Philadelphia churches and neighborhood groups are preparing to confront ICE.

    Within the serpentine halls and stairways of Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, congregants have established several private, off-limits rooms ― each a potential last-stand space where members would try to shield immigrants from ICE, should agents breach the sanctuary.

    Church leaders call them Fourth Amendment areas, named for the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The plan would be to stop ICE officers at the thresholds and demand proof that they carry legal authority to make an arrest, such as a signed judicial warrant.

    “It’s a protective space,” said the Rev. Peter Ahn, pastor of the Spring Garden church. “While you’re here, you’re safe, is what we want to assert.”

    Could it come to that? A pastor confronting armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the hallway of a church?

    It’s impossible to know. But across Philadelphia, churches, community groups, immigration advocates, and block leaders are actively preparing for the time ― maybe soon, maybe later, maybe never ― that the Trump administration deploys thousands of federal agents. People say they must be ready if the president tries to turn Philadelphia into Minneapolis ― or Los Angeles, Chicago, or Washington, D.C.

    People participate in an anti-ICE protest outside of the Governors Residence on Feb. 6, in St. Paul, Minn.

    Know-your-rights trainings are popping up everywhere, often to standing-room-only attendance, and ICE-watch groups are abuzz on social media.

    The First United Methodist Church of Germantown held a seminar last week to learn about nonviolent resistance, “so that we will be ready for whatever comes,” said senior pastor Alisa Lasater Wailoo.

    “That may mean putting our bodies in the path to protect other vulnerable bodies,” she said. “We’re seeing that in Minnesota.”

    In Center City, Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel has ordered 300 whistles ― portable and efficient tools to immediately alert neighbors to ICE presence and warn immigrants to seek safety.

    “There was a sense of needing to support our neighbors if it comes down to it,” said Rabbi Abi Weber. “God forbid, should there start to be ICE raids in our neighborhood, people will be prepared.”

    In other places around the country, immigrant allies have similarly readied themselves for ICE’s arrival, and organized to react in concert when agents show up.

    In Washington state, the group WA Whistles has distributed more than 100,000 free whistles to create what it calls “an immediate first line of community defense.” Chicago residents set up volunteer street patrols to warn immigrants of ICE and to contact family members of those detained. In Los Angeles, people raised money to support food-cart vendors, and organized an “adopt a corner” program to protect day laborers who seek work outside Home Depot stores.

    A small sign at the Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, where the Rev. Peter Ahn is creating space to shield immigrants if necessary.

    Ask Philadelphia groups that advocate for immigrants — 15% of the population, including about 76,000 who are undocumented — and they say ICE isn’t about to land in the city. It’s been here.

    The agency’s Philadelphia office serves as headquarters not just for the city but for all of Pennsylvania and for Delaware and West Virginia as well. Arrests take place every day in the Philadelphia region.

    “You all seem to be ‘preparing’ for something that’s already happened,” veteran activist Miguel Andrade wrote on Facebook.

    What has changed, however, is the dramatic escalation in ICE enforcement, particularly visible in Democratic-run cities like Minneapolis, where agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in January.

    ICE detained 307,713 people across the country in 2025, a 230% increase over the 93,342 in 2024. What federal immigration agencies record as detentions closely mirror arrests.

    Today residents in communities like Norristown and Upper Darby see ICE agents on the streets all the time. Cell phone videos have captured violent footage, including the smashed front door of a Lower Providence home after agents made an arrest on Feb. 9, and two people roughly pulled from a car in Phoenixville earlier this month.

    For immigrants who have no legal permission to be in the U.S. ― an estimated 14 million people ― the rising ICE presence steals sleep and peace of mind. They know not just that they could be arrested and deported at any moment, which has always been true, but also that the U.S. government is expending vast resources to try to make that happen.

    A woman who came to Philadelphia from Jamaica last year, and who asked not to be identified because she is undocumented, said she rarely leaves her home. She said she steps outside only to go to the grocery store, a doctor, or an attorney.

    She recently asked her daughter to check something on the computer, and the girl balked ― afraid to even touch the machine, worried that ICE could track her keystrokes and identify their location, the woman said.

    “How can I tell her it’s going to be OK when I don’t know it’s going to be OK?” asked the woman, who came to the U.S. to escape potential violence in Jamaica. “You come here expecting freedom, but here it’s like you’re in jail except for the [physical] barriers of the four walls.”

    Even as arrests have soared, Philadelphia has been spared the federal intrusions visited on other American cities.

    Why?

    Some say President Donald Trump doesn’t want to ruin the summer celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday, or spoil the grandeur of the World Cup or Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. Others suggest that he might be timing an ICE deployment to do exactly that.

    City Council President Kenyatta Johnson speaking at the City Council’s first session of the year Jan. 22. He said this month that it’s time to stand up for immigrants in Philadelphia. “It’s my responsibility to step up in this space and be more vocal,” he said.

    That as Philadelphia City Council prepares to consider “ICE Out” legislation that would make it more difficult and complicated for the agency to operate in the city.

    Trump told NBC News this month that he is “very strongly” looking at five new cities.

    Some people are not waiting to see if Philadelphia is on the list.

    The monthly Zoom meeting of the Cresheim Village Neighbors usually draws about 20 people. But a hundred logged on in January to hear a presentation: What to do if/when ICE comes to our neighborhood.

    The short advice: If it happens, get out your phone and hit “record.”

    “If I see ICE agents, I will film,” said neighbors group coordinator Steve Stroiman, a retired teacher and rabbi. “I have a constitutional right to do that.”

    Federal immigration enforcement agents shatter a truck window and detain two men outside a Home Depot in Evanston, Ill., on Dec. 17, 2025.

    In a sliver of University City, Miriam Oppenheimer has helped lead three block meetings where neighbors gathered to discuss how they would respond.

    They set up a Signal channel so people can communicate. And they formulated a loose plan of action: People will come outside their homes and take video recordings ― and try to get the names and birth dates of anyone taken into custody, so they can be located later.

    “Courage is contagious,” Oppenheimer said. “Everybody is waiting for somebody else to do something, but we have to be the ones.”

    Inside Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, doorways to some rooms now bear black-and-white signs that say, “Staff and authorized personnel only.”

    Issues around ICE access to churches have become more urgent since Trump rescinded the agency policy on “sensitive locations,” which had generally barred enforcement at schools, hospitals, and houses of worship.

    Legal advocates such as the ACLU say ICE agents can lawfully enter the public areas of churches, including the sanctuaries where people gather to worship. But to go into private spaces they must present a warrant signed by a judge.

    “There are many front lines right now,” said Ahn, the Olivet pastor. “We’re not trying to be simply anti-ICE, or anti-anybody. We’re just trying to be for the rights of the Fourth Amendment.”

    Staff writer Joe Yerardi contributed to this article.

  • ‘He loved Philadelphia, and Philadelphia loved him’: Jesse Jackson in Philadelphia through the years

    ‘He loved Philadelphia, and Philadelphia loved him’: Jesse Jackson in Philadelphia through the years

    The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a civil rights icon and a regular presence in Philadelphia who energized Black voters both locally and nationally for more than five decades, died Tuesday at his home in Chicago following a prolonged battle with a rare neurological disorder. He was 84.

    “Jesse Jackson will be remembered in Philadelphia as a civil rights hero, and a leader in terms of independent Black politics nationwide,” said former Councilmember W. Wilson Goode Jr., the son of Philly’s first Black mayor, W. Wilson Goode Sr. “He loved Philadelphia, and Philadelphia loved him.”

    A native of Greenville, S.C., Rev. Jackson initially rose to prominence in the mid-1960s, when he joined the 1965 voting rights march that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. In the years following King’s assassination in 1968, Rev. Jackson largely came to be considered his successor.

    Rev. Jackson would go on to become a prominent Black political and cultural leader in his own right, with his lengthy time in the public eye including presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. His visits to Philadelphia date back to the 1970s, and run the gamut from time in town supporting his own presidential campaigns — though neither of which were successful in the ‘80s — to appearances at the Democratic National Convention in 2016.

    The Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, acknowledges the cheers of delegates as he walks to the podium to deliver remarks on the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on July 27, 2016.
    Hillary Clinton supporters and the Rev. Jesse Jackson (right) on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center on July 28, 2016.
    The Rev. Jesse Jackson visits Baltimore’s turbulent intersection of West North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue on April 28, 2015.

    Across that time, Rev. Jackson served as a sort of rallying figure for Black Philadelphians at large, who largely supported his candidacy during his presidential runs, despite him failing to secure the Democratic nomination statewide. Still, his impact for Black voters both in Philadelphia and nationally remains everlasting.

    “That was the Rosetta stone to everything Jackson was trying to achieve,” said former Daily News scribe Gene Seymour, nephew of legendary People Paper columnist Chuck Stone. “We aren’t to be ignored or dismissed or cast aside — we matter.”

    In that sense, Goode Jr. said, Rev. Jackson will remain a political icon who inspired the nationalization of Black political empowerment.

    “Jesse Jackson is also a cultural icon in terms of telling people to be proud of being Black, and telling themselves, ‘I am somebody,’” Goode Jr. said, referencing Rev. Jackson’s famed refrain. “That is something that was indelible in the soul of Black people across the nation and world, and in Philadelphia here as well.”

    The Rev. Jesse Jackson visits the turbulent intersection of West North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore on April 28, 2015.
    The Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Occupy Philadelphia protesters on Nov. 13, 2011. He told them to “never surrender.”
    The Rev Jesse Jackson at Joe Frazier’s funeral at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church on Cheltenham Avenue in Philadelphia on Nov. 14, 2011.
    The Rev. Jesse Jackson (center) visits the Interfaith tent, donated by Quakers, to talk to the Rev. Peter Friedrich (left) and (from right) Phillip Hall, Hollister Knowlton, and Joyce Moore in 2011.

    Though Philadelphia’s Black community generally was supportive of and receptive to Rev. Jackson’s messaging historically, Seymour said, he maintained something of a complicated relationship with the city’s prominent politicians. Wilson Goode Sr., for example, officially supported Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis for president in the 1980s. At least in 1988, Seymour said, Rev. Jackson likely had “the people’s hearts,” despite lacking the official nomination.

    Wilson Goode Sr. was not immediately available for comment.

    “His presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 reshaped American politics,” said the Rev. Gregory Edwards, of the Philly-based POWER Interfaith, in a statement. “Those campaigns widened the political imagination of this country and helped cultivate a generation of Black elected leaders.”

    Rev. Jackson’s relationship with Goode Sr. was somewhat complicated following the 1985 MOVE bombing, which brought the civil rights leader to tour the ruins of the 6200 block of Osage Avenue in its aftermath. Rev. Jackson urged a congressional investigation into the incident, which he called “excessive force,” but avoided criticizing Goode directly in subsequent meetings. Goode, meanwhile, said that the city would cooperate with any groups investigating the incident, The Inquirer reported at the time.

    “He was not happy with what happened in ‘85 with MOVE,” Seymour said.

    The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson speaks during during funeral services for civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker at Deliverance Evangelistic Church on Oct. 21, 2005. Seated in front row behind him, left to right are Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation; Marion Barry, former mayor of Washington, and Philadelphia Mayor John Street.
    Rev. Jackson is projected live on a large screen monitor (camera operator in foreground) as he participates in a panel discussion laying out a legal and political strategy for fulfilling Brown v. the Board of Education, at the annual NAACP meeting on July. 14, 2004 at the Convention Center.
    Her family stands by as husband (partially hidden) William T. Tucker covers the body of civil rights activist C. Delores Tucker in her casket at the beginning of funeral service at Deliverance Evangelistic Church on Oct. 21, 2005. At right is the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow Coalition/PUSH, who later delivered the eulogy. Seated in rear at right is former Vice President Al Gore.
    AIDS quilt panels flank the podium as the Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at an African American AIDS conference at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel on Feb. 28, 2005.

    Still, Rev. Jackson often served as a defender of Philadelphia’s famed Black figures. In 2011, for example, Rev. Jackson spoke at the funeral of legendary world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier, who had long competed with the fictional Rocky Balboa for recognition. As Jackson put it at the time, Frazier was the “real champion,” not the “Italian Stallion.”

    The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has a sleeping bag draped around his shoulders, is talking and praying with Occupy Philadelphia demonstrators: Brad Wilson (from left); the Rev. Bill Golderer, pastor of Broad Street Ministry; and Donna Jones, pastor of the Cookman Baptist Initiative.

    “If you were of importance as a Black person in America during the time [Jackson] was in the public eye,” Seymour said, “he was there to speak on your behalf.”

    Goode Jr.’s most prominent memory of Rev. Jackson, meanwhile, dates back to the mid-1980s, when he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, he said, Rev. Jackson attended a National Black Student Union conference following an invitation from its organizers, Goode Jr. included. It was, Goode Jr. said, an inspiration.

    “It meant a lot to us,” Goode Jr. said. “Not just Black leaders at Penn, but across the nation, who were gathered there.”

    Striking Red Cross worker Lenny Lerro takes a picture of himself with the Rev. Jesse Jackson as they walk the picket line in 2011 on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia.
    Rev. Jesse Jackson visits with folks at Occupy Philadelphia, just outside City Hall on Nov. 20, 2011.
    The Rev. Jesse Jackson visits with folks at Occupy Philadelphia, just outside City Hall on Nov. 20, 2011.
    U.S. Rep. John Lewis (second from left) is presented with the Civil Rights Champion Award in 2013 by (from left) the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Marc Morial, president of the Urban League.
  • City Council members grill school district officials on plan to close 20 schools — and superintendent says he could have closed 40

    City Council members grill school district officials on plan to close 20 schools — and superintendent says he could have closed 40

    Philadelphia City Council may not have a vote on Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s sweeping facilities plan, but it indicated Tuesday that it will have a say in school closings.

    As a packed hearing began in Council’s chambers Tuesday morning, both Council President Kenyatta Johnson and Isaiah Thomas, chair of the Education Committee, said Council refused to be a “rubber stamp” to Watlington’s proposal to close 20 schools, colocate six, and modernize 159.

    Though only the school board gets to vote directly on the plan, Johnson has indicated he is willing to hold up city funding to the district over the school closure plan. And his colleagues echoed that sentiment Tuesday.

    “I’m infuriated that we don’t get a say,” Councilmember Jimmy Harrity said, warning the district officials who appeared before him. “But, Council president, you and I both know we do get a say, because budget’s coming. And we will be looking. Mindful is the word I would use for today — be mindful.”

    Concerned citizens stand with signs in support of Harding Middle School before the start of a Philadelphia City Council hearing Tuesday at City Hall on the school district’s plan to close 20 schools.

    About 40% of the district’s nearly $5 billion budget comes from local revenue and city funding, which City Council and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker must approve in the annual city budget by the end of June.

    Harrity, an at-large Council member, said he was “tired that every time cuts come, they come from a certain neighborhood. You know, I live in Kensington, in the 7th District. I talk to these kids. They’re good kids. They deserve everything that other kids in other neighborhoods are getting. … You can see that this isn’t what our people want.” Watlington has proposed closing four schools in the 7th District.

    More than 100 community members holding babies and waving signs opposing the facilities plan filled Council chambers on the fourth floor of City Hall on Tuesday as Council members spent hours grilling Watlington and other district officials.

    Watlington, meanwhile, stood by his plan in testimony to Council on Tuesday, saying that 20 closings was a much smaller number than he could have settled on.

    “We could have come here and presented a plan that closed twice as many schools and been able to defend it,” Watlington said.

    A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

    District officials have said the facilities process is not about saving money, but about optimizing education and equity for the city’s 115,000 students.

    But it was clear Tuesday that finances played a part: The district has lost 15,000 students in the last 10 years, and over 80,000 since 1997, when charter schools were first authorized in Pennsylvania. It has 300 buildings, many of them 75 years and older and in poor repair, and some schools with more than 1,000 empty seats, while others are overcrowded.

    Tony B. Watlington Sr., superintendent of School District of Philadelphia, speaks at a City Council hearing Tuesday on his proposal to close 20 schools.

    “We’ve got to be very careful with our limited resources in a historically underfunded district,” Watlington told Council.

    Watlington and board president Reginald Streater, who also testified, pitched the plan as a way to add things the district cannot now offer — Advanced Placement courses in every high school, the opportunity for all eighth graders to take algebra, more prekindergarten, and career and technical education programs.

    “I do not believe we’ll get this opportunity again in our lifetime,” Watlington said.

    The superintendent dropped a few previously undisclosed facts about the facilities road map, indicating that his recommendations could shift slightly before he presents the plan to the school board on Feb. 26. No date has been set for the board’s final vote, which is expected later this winter.

    “It’s premature to say how the final recommendations will land,” Watlington said.

    But, the superintendent said, “if there are schools that Council wants me to take off the list, and add others on that list, we are open to you telling me what those are, but we cannot get to a place where we address our 35% non-utilization rate in buildings if no changes are made.”

    Philadelphia City Council President Kenyatta Johnson (left) greets Dr. Tony Watlington, Superintendent of School District of Philadelphia Philadelphia City Council holds hearing with board members of School District of Philadelphia, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. Reginald L. Streater, Esq., President Board of Education. (center)

    Debora Carrera, the city’s chief education officer, who spent three decades as a district teacher and administrator, told Council that Parker believes “the current district footprint is unsustainable.”

    Carrera said her own experience as principal of Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts shows that it is right for the district to focus resources on neighborhood high schools.

    “My high school was a small high school,” Carrera said. “I could only offer my children two AP courses, when other schools like Central — where my son went — could offer them over 20-plus AP courses.“

    ‘Breaking down of public education’

    The hearing got tense at times.

    “I feel like this is the breaking down of public education in Philadelphia,” said Councilmember Cindy Bass, who said some of the district’s own decisions had led to closures.

    Several members of Council raised questions about the plan’s price tag. Prior district and city estimates put the cost just under $8 billion, but members of Watlington’s team said they could they could actually do the work for $2.8 billion — $1 billion from district capital funds, and $1.8 from yet-unpromised state and philanthropic sources.

    In the past, the district had made public detailed facilities condition assessments for every school in the district, Councilmember Rue Landau noted.

    Residents could look up their school and see exactly what the condition of every system in the building was, and how much money would be required to fix those that needed repair.

    “We don’t have any of those details,” said Landau, who went so far as to say she believed the district should be spending more than $2.8 billion on the plan. “What is the increased investment, and why don’t we have any of those details? They are not out there in the public for us, so none of us have any understanding as to why this is happening, This should all be public so all of the public can see.”

    Jerry Roseman, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers’ longtime environmental director, who has had a first-row seat to district facilities conditions for decades, said he believed the $2.8 billion figure was not realistic.

    “You need much more money than that,” Roseman told Council. “We need more money than this plan comes close to.”

    Some Council members pushed the district and the board on the plan’s timing.

    The city has been asking for a long-range facilities plan for years, Councilmember Quetcy Lozada pointed out.

    “It’s taken us all this time,” Lozada said. “Now, you guys have come up with a plan, and now we want to rush through it. Now all of a sudden there’s this urgency to get through this plan, which I don’t understand.”

    Streater said the board is moving forward with hearing Watlington’s plan on Feb. 26, but won’t vote until it hears more feedback.

    But ultimately, he said, the board will vote on “a plan that is dynamic, that can evolve over time. … I think that we all understand that things change, facts change, funding changes, enrollment trends change.”

    And, Streater said, there will also likely be policy changes based on redrawing some catchment areas, or boundaries that determine which neighborhood schools children attend.

    Streater, who introduced himself at the beginning of the hearing as “Reggie from Germantown,” underscoring his history as a graduate of two district schools that closed — Germantown High and Leeds Middle School — said that changes must be made.

    “I think if we continue doing the same thing, expecting a different result — which I would argue is chronic underachievement — we are doomed.”

  • Students protest U.S. Customs and Border Protection participation at campus career fairs

    Students protest U.S. Customs and Border Protection participation at campus career fairs

    Amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration and deployment of federal officers to cities across the country, students at Philadelphia-area colleges are protesting against the appearance of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at campus career fairs.

    At least four local universities — Thomas Jefferson, Villanova, Temple, and Rowan — have faced opposition to allowing recruitment in recent months.

    A petition circulated at Jefferson last week sought to keep CBP from appearing at a campus career event. CBP and ICE — both agencies that enforce immigration laws under the Department of Homeland Security — have been at the center of a national debate after two Minneapolis residents were killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in shootings now under investigation.

    “Due to the harm CBP has caused to communities across the nation, it is abhorrent for TJU to accept CBP at their institution,” said an occupational therapy student who signed the petition and asked that her name be withheld, fearing retribution. “I don’t think any institution should be encouraging students to get involved in these kinds of agencies, given the current climate.”

    But the petition has since come down, the student said, and CBP is not on the list of employers due to appear at the event, called the 2026 Career Day and Design Expo, on Thursday at the East Falls campus. Jefferson has not acknowledged that CBP was on the list initially or responded to questions on whether it was removed.

    Thomas Jefferson University gets its first alma mater song 200 years later. Meet the composer.

    CBP, which has offices in Philadelphia, has appeared at campus career events in the area in the past.

    An email seeking comment from CBP’s media office was not returned.

    At Rowan University in New Jersey earlier this month, the participation of CBP’s Trade Regulatory Audit Philadelphia Field Office in a career fair drew some student protest. Members of a student activist group distributed fliers speaking out against CBP during the fair, according to Rowan’s student newspaper, the Whit, and campus police and administration officials came to the scene.

    The agency also reserved a table and came to a fall event at Rowan to share information about accounting-related auditing internships, said Rowan spokesperson Joe Cardona, and has done so at the public university for the last decade.

    Rowan’s Rohrer College of Business Center for Professional Development hosts more than 200 employers each year, including local, state, and federal agencies as well as private-sector groups, he said.

    Rowan University launches $240 million fundraising campaign

    “The presence of any employer on campus does not constitute institutional endorsement of that organization’s policies or actions,” Cardona said. “Rather, it reflects our commitment to supporting student career exploration while upholding principles of open access and free expression.”

    At Villanova, CBP pulled out of a career fair it had planned to attend earlier this month, according to the Villanovan, the student newspaper. The withdrawal followed criticism on social media about the organization’s planned appearance.

    The organizer of an Instagram account that opposed the agency’s participation said they wished that Villanova had made the decision to disallow the group rather than the group withdrawing, according to the student newspaper.

    “I think a lot of students will feel a lot safer and more comfortable attending this Career Fair,” the organizer said. “But it doesn’t take away the anger that this was ever something that was gonna happen.”

    Villanova said in a statement that CBP‘s Office of Trade had participated in prior career events and that employers with prior participation were contacted “through standard outreach” about this year’s event.

    Temple’s law school last semester had planned to host a “Coffee and Careers” networking event with a DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer but later canceled it, according to the Temple News, the student newspaper. The event was replaced with a talk on public interest law by Philadelphia City Councilmember Rue Landau.

    DHS “chose to engage directly with students interested in DHS opportunities rather than participate in a scheduled career event,” Temple spokesperson Steve Orbanek said.

    He also noted that “career fairs are university-sponsored events, and actions that disrupt these events may violate university policy and established on-campus demonstration guidelines.”

  • What’s in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s new housing plan: Protections for Pa. renters, $1 billion for infrastructure, homebuyer support, and more

    What’s in Gov. Josh Shapiro’s new housing plan: Protections for Pa. renters, $1 billion for infrastructure, homebuyer support, and more

    Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a broad plan Thursday meant to grow and preserve Pennsylvania’s housing supply as the state faces a shortage of homes residents can afford.

    The plan aims to expand residents’ access to homes, connect Pennsylvanians to resources to keep them housed, make homebuilding faster and less costly, and improve coordination of housing efforts across agencies and levels of government.

    Recommendations and reforms in the state’s Housing Action Plan, which is meant to guide Pennsylvania into 2035, are embedded in the governor’s proposed budget, Shapiro said.

    “And now, the ball is in the court of the legislature to carry this forward and to get it done,” he said at a news conference in Philadelphia.

    The plan is the culmination of a process that started in September 2024, when Shapiro signed an executive order directing state officials to create it.

    In the plan, Shapiro highlights that more than a million Pennsylvania households are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. These households are “cost burdened,” according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition. Building more can lower housing costs.

    Shapiro called the plan a long-term housing strategy that “brings together all different groups who are doing this work, builds on their expertise, and tackles housing access and affordability from every single angle.”

    Here are key takeaways from Shapiro’s proposed housing action plan, the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.

    Enacting the plan

    Much of the plan relies on action from lawmakers in the state’s split legislature and other stakeholders rather than Shapiro’s administration exclusively. It does not assign dollar amounts to proposals, but calls on local governments to allow more housing and housing types, on builders to build more, and on both to work together to remove barriers to housing construction.

    Democrats (left) stand to applaud a tax cut proposal while Republicans (right) remain seated as Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers his third budget address to a joint session in the House chambers at the State Capitol Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.

    When Shapiro was asked how he intends to make sure the housing plan is implemented, he said he can take some actions through executive orders but “a lot does require the legislature to act and to work in concert with local government.”

    “I hear in rural, urban, suburban communities, districts led by Democrats and Republicans, the need for more housing,” Shapiro said. “… And I would say to any lawmaker that doesn’t like my idea, ‘What’s yours?’ Because we can no longer wait. We have got to get this done. We’ve got to build more housing.”

    $1 billion fund

    In his budget address last week, Shapiro previewed his housing priorities, calling for a $1 billion fund, supported by the issuing of bonds, to pay for infrastructure projects that include housing.

    Shapiro’s budget proposal includes no requirements on the proportion of funding that goes to each infrastructure need, leaving the possibility that the majority of funds could be spent on projects other than housing.

    While Shapiro said Thursday that divvying up the $1 billion will be subject to negotiation with lawmakers, he said he hoped “the lion’s share of it would go to housing.”

    Pennsylvania needs more housing

    If Pennsylvania takes no action to build and preserve more housing, it will be short about 185,000 homes by 2035, according to the plan. To keep up with anticipated demand, the state needs to add 450,000 homes to its supply by then.

    The housing plan has a stated goal of turning Pennsylvania into a leader in home construction.

    Construction work on a home at Bancroft and Reed Streets in South Philadelphia, Pa. on Friday, May 1, 2020.

    As it stands now, Pennsylvania is one of the states that have allowed the least new housing. It ranked 44th for the share of homes approved to be built from 2017 to 2023, the Pew Charitable Trusts said in a report released last year. Pew said Pennsylvania’s lack of housing supply is hiking prices for homeowners and renters.

    Shapiro’s housing plan recommends that Pennsylvania:

    • Expand programs to repair and preserve existing homes.
    • Create a tax credit to incentivize home building in underinvested areas.
    • Invest in small residential developers who can help boost housing production.
    • Eliminate outdated or unnecessary state development regulations.
    • Direct funding to help homebuilders pay land development costs, developers convert former commercial buildings into homes, and property owners create mixed-use developments that include housing.
    • Appoint a deputy secretary of housing and create a “housing one-stop shop” to help residents and builders access the state’s existing housing resources.

    Protection for renters

    The housing plan calls for Pennsylvania to bolster protections for households that either rent their homes or rent the land their homes sit on, including protections Shapiro called for in his budget address.

    Suggestions include:

    • More eviction protections.
    • Restrictions on how much landlords can collect as a security deposit.
    • A statewide cap on rental application fees. (Philadelphia City Council members passed their own cap on application fees last year.)
    • Explicitly banning landlords from denying housing to people because they use public assistance or any other lawful source of income. (New Jersey enacted a law last month that does this.)

    Security for manufactured-home owners

    Manufactured homes are single-family dwellings often built off-site and placed on a lot. These households own their homes, but many of them rent the land.

    Manufactured homes represent one of the most affordable forms of homeownership. But homeowners are often left vulnerable because they have no other option than to pay increased rent costs if they want to keep the homes they own. Manufactured-home communities are increasingly being bought by private equity companies and other institutional investors, and rent hikes tend to follow.

    The housing plan says Pennsylvania should:

    • Limit the rent increases that landowners can charge.
    • Make financing easier for buyers of manufactured homes.
    • Give residents of manufactured-home communities the right of first refusal when a landowner decides to sell.

    Recent laws in New Jersey limit annual rent increases for manufactured-home lots and make it easier for residents to buy their communities.

    Across Pennsylvania, 56,000 households live in manufactured-home communities, Shapiro said in his budget address last week.

    Homebuyer help

    The plan calls for Pennsylvania to pursue new ways to help residents become homeowners, including creating programs to reduce home-buying costs and allowing local governments to exempt first-time homebuyers from local realty transfer taxes.

    It also calls for the state to impose a transfer tax when corporate investors buy single-family and certain other types of homes to help households compete for properties.

    Untangling titles

    To protect Pennsylvanians’ generational wealth, the plan calls for the state to allow transfer-on-death deeds to provide a streamlined process for passing down homes. This would help prevent cases of tangled title — or unclear legal ownership of property. This mostly occurs when a homeowner dies and the deed is not transferred to a new owner.

    Tangled titles keep people from qualifying for help to repair their homes and can prevent them from being able to sell properties.

    In Philadelphia alone, tangled titles threaten more than $1 billion in generational wealth, according to a 2021 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

    The plan also calls for funding for legal services to help low-income Pennsylvanians resolve tangled titles. In 2022, Philadelphia officials pledged to give $7.6 million over four years to legal-aid groups that are tackling this problem.

    Rachel Gallegos, a divisional supervising attorney for the homeownership and consumer rights unit at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, called Shapiro’s plan “ambitious.”

    “And I like that,” she said. “I think it has to be in order to keep progress moving forward.”

    The legal-aid nonprofit routinely helps low-income clients with tangled titles, and Gallegos said she was glad to see the plan call for additional support for the work.

    “We want to preserve homeownership for our clients,” she said.

  • Council President Kenyatta Johnson says Philadelphia can’t sit out Trump’s immigration fight anymore

    Council President Kenyatta Johnson says Philadelphia can’t sit out Trump’s immigration fight anymore

    Despite Philadelphia being a deep-blue city dominated by Democrats, local officials have been somewhat cautious in how they talk about President Donald Trump’s administration.

    That has included the top legislator, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who has largely taken a measured approach on national politics, opting to convene task forces and hold public hearings rather than go scorched-earth on Trump.

    That was until last month, when Johnson, like the rest of the country, watched video footage on the news showing federal immigration enforcement agents bearing down on Minneapolis and fatally shooting two United States citizens.

    Johnson said he was horrified by the tactics, and he quickly backed a package of legislation that would limit how immigration enforcement is conducted in Philadelphia.

    He said in an interview Friday that he now sees City Council differently: as an “activist body” that is obligated to take legislative action in opposition to the Trump administration.

    And Johnson said he questions the purpose of his position if not to stand up for the city’s most vulnerable — and right now, he said, that’s immigrants.

    “It’s my responsibility to step up in this space and be more vocal,” he said over lunch in South Philadelphia’s Point Breeze neighborhood, the section of the city where he grew up and still lives. “It’s just the evolution of me really not addressing it from a political standpoint, but from a moral standpoint of advocating and fighting for individuals who really need a voice.”

    Philly ICE legislative package gets a veto-proof majority in Council

    That reflects a shift for Johnson, the centrist Democrat who is entering his third year as Council president. He considers himself pro-law enforcement, and he typically takes an understated approach to leadership, preferring to dissent with others privately rather than duke it out in public.

    In employing a more assertive approach, Johnson has also over the last several months started to diverge from Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a close ally.

    Parker has carefully avoided attacking Trump and his administration publicly since he took office for his second term more than a year ago. She says often that she is focused on executing on her own agenda, and people close to her say her strategy is aimed at protecting the millions of dollars Philadelphia receives each year in federal aid.

    Johnson — who is seen as a potential future mayoral candidate himself — does not criticize Parker’s style.

    “The mayor can respond how she chooses to respond,” he said. “For me, it’s a moral issue.”

    Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker stands beside Council President Kenyatta Johnson (left) after she finished her budget address to City Council, City Hall, Thursday, March 13, 2025.

    Larry Ceisler, a public affairs executive and longtime City Hall observer, said he has watched Johnson rise from community activist to lawmaker.

    He said the Council president, in his latest evolution, might have calculated that a majority of the 16 other members want the city’s legislative body to take a more active role.

    “He is an activist at heart, and he has a tremendous amount of empathy for people,” Ceisler said. “At the same time, he’s a pretty good politician and he can count votes. It’s very difficult for him at this point to push back on the will of his members.”

    But Ceisler said that Parker might have more to lose, and that she will “be on the hook for all this if there is retribution from Washington.”

    A ‘shameful’ episode at the President’s House

    Through the first eight months of the second Trump administration, Johnson largely kept focused on local policymaking.

    When a reporter asked Johnson in January 2025 how he saw his role responding to the Trump administration, he noted that he had convened two working groups to study how Trump-backed policies would affect Philadelphia residents.

    Other Council members introduced more than a dozen resolutions to condemn the Trump administration’s efforts that they said would harm Philadelphians, like cutting food assistance and prohibiting some diversity-hiring initiatives. One resolution opposed the federal government’s deployment of the National Guard as a crime-fighting measure in major American cities; another said Trump’s cabinet members were wholly unqualified.

    Those measures, almost entirely symbolic, were largely spearheaded by progressive members. They passed the overwhelmingly Democratic Council with little debate and not much acknowledgment from the Council president.

    But by September, Johnson began to speak up.

    He was incensed when word spread that the Trump administration was seeking to alter some content related to slavery on federal properties, including at Independence National Historical Park. The National Park Service was reportedly looking to edit panels at the President’s House Site in Center City that memorialize the nine people whom George Washington enslaved.

    Johnson at the time accused Trump of trying to “rewrite American history,” and he quickly allied himself with the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, the group that helped shape the site.

    Last month, federal workers removed the exhibit and relocated the panels to the National Constitution Center, where they are in storage. Parker’s administration filed a lawsuit immediately, and the issue remains the only Trump initiative that Parker has vocally opposed over the last year.

    “This history is a critical part of our nation’s origins, and it deserves to be seen and heard,” she said in a video posted on social media.

    A judge is currently weighing the case.

    Here are the signs the Trump administration removed from Independence National Historical Park
    Veronica Chapman-Smith, concerned citizen was present at the history lesson and protest, Presidents house, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. The community is coming together to protest the removal of slavery exhibit at the President’s House site.

    The Council president said he wants the panels returned in time for an expected influx of tourists this year for several major events, including World Cup games and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the nation.

    “It’s shameful that during this celebration of our country, the birthplace of America, here in the city of Philadelphia, we have to deal with a Trump administration trying to whitewash our history,” Johnson said last week.

    A Minneapolis-like ICE surge on ‘any given day’

    Over the next five months, Johnson will juggle advocating for the return of the panels as he manages other high-profile local matters. Council must approve a city budget by the end of June, and its members are expected to play a crucial role in the Philadelphia School District’s closure and consolidation plan that will affect dozens of schools.

    The “ICE Out” legislation that Johnson has already backed is also expected to be a major undertaking over the coming weeks. The seven bills that make up the package already have support from 15 of Council’s 17 members, which constitutes a veto-proof majority.

    City Councilmember Rue Landau, a Democrat who is one of the prime sponsors of the immigration legislation, said Johnson “fully realizes the importance of this moment.”

    “His support,” she said, “is a recognition that local government has a pivotal role to play in moments like these.”

    Prior to this year, Johnson rarely talked about immigration. He has spent most of his career focused on public safety, gun violence prevention, and quality-of-life issues.

    Today, he said, his top priorities include the safety of the nearly quarter of a million immigrants who make up an estimated 15% of the city’s population.

    Johnson said he is especially concerned that the Trump administration quietly spent $87 million on warehouse space in Berks County, which records show will be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Bloomberg reported that the building, about 85 miles outside Philadelphia, is one of two dozen across the nation that ICE has identified for conversion into detention centers. ICE purchased another warehouse in Schuylkill County, about 110 miles from Philadelphia.

    Together, the two facilities could hold 9,000 beds.

    To Johnson, it was like the federal government was saying: “We want to set up shop right in your backyard.”

    ICE is already operating in the city. But Johnson said the warehouse purchases are a sign that Philadelphia should prepare for a greater surge of immigration enforcement like the operation in Minneapolis, where more than 3,000 federal agents were deployed and large-scale protests ensued.

    Countless Minnesotans have said they were harassed, racially profiled, and unlawfully arrested by ICE agents during the operation this year.

    “Who’s to say that won’t happen to any of my constituents that I represent from Liberia? From Sierra Leone? From Cambodia?” Johnson said. “It can happen on any given day here in the city of Philadelphia.”

  • An ex-Philly City Council aide from a prominent political family is accused of sexual harassment

    An ex-Philly City Council aide from a prominent political family is accused of sexual harassment

    After Sharif Street Jr. got into a highly public fight at Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s 2024 inauguration ceremony, his boss, City Councilmember Jim Harrity, extended him some grace.

    Harrity, who credits Street Jr.’s father, State Sen. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia), with giving him a second chance earlier in his own career, kept the junior Street on staff as a special assistant, saying the incident was a lapse in judgment.

    But according to another staff member in Harrity’s office, it was not the only transgression.

    Shanelle Davis, a former constituent services representative, filed a federal lawsuit last week against the city claiming that she told supervisors months before the inauguration fight that Street Jr. had sexually harassed her while she was at work, including twice grabbing her and making sexualized comments about her body.

    She said in the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, that no action was taken and Street Jr. remained on staff.

    Davis is seeking unspecified damages from the city, which she claims violated state and federal laws related to gender-based discrimination. Street Jr. is not named as a defendant in the suit, but he is mentioned throughout the 13-page filing.

    Davis’ complaint portrays a dysfunctional workplace environment in the City Hall office, including an alleged physical altercation between Street Jr. and another staffer for which no one was reprimanded. Davis, who is Black, claimed another colleague in Harrity’s office made racist comments, including hurling the N-word toward her.

    Davis, who was hired in late 2022, said in the lawsuit that she was fired for underperforming at her job about a year later, after Harrity won reelection.

    Her attorney did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Street Jr. did not respond to calls seeking comment.

    Harrity, a Democrat who represents the city at-large and was a longtime aide to the elder Street, said in a statement that he “categorically denounce[s] workplace harassment, or any conduct that undermines a respectful and professional work environment.”

    He declined to comment further, citing the ongoing legal proceedings. A spokesperson for the city law department also declined to comment.

    The lawsuit is the latest legal trouble involving Sharif Street Jr., 26, who over the last three years has pleaded guilty to criminal offenses in Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Delaware Counties. In August, his employment with the city was terminated the week he pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the inauguration assault and another incident.

    City Councilmember Jim Harrity speaks to colleagues on during a Council session in September.

    Street Jr. comes from one of Philadelphia’s most well-known political families. His grandfather is former Mayor John F. Street, his mother is Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra Thomas Street, and his father is a state senator and the former head of the state Democratic Party who is now running for a seat in Congress.

    Anthony Campisi, a spokesperson for the elder Sharif Street’s congressional campaign, said the state senator had “no knowledge” of the sexual harassment allegations.

    “Sharif loves his son unconditionally and has supported his son through personal troubles, like so many parents across Philadelphia,” Campisi said. “That being said, Sharif unequivocally condemns sexual harassment in all its forms and is looking for the legal process to play out.”

    City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who took over as leader of the chamber in 2024, declined to comment. Under City Council rules, individual members are responsible for hiring and terminating their own employees.

    State Senator Sharif Street (D., Phila.)is in the state House chamber as Gov. Josh Shapiro makes his annual budget proposal Feb. 3, 2026.

    Street Jr. was arrested several times over three years while working in City Hall as an assistant in Harrity’s office, court records show. Davis’ lawsuit comes about six months after Street Jr.’s employment in Harrity’s office ended, according to payroll records.

    In January 2024, Street Jr. punched a security guard at the entrance to Parker’s inauguration ceremony at the Met Philadelphia on North Broad Street. He told The Inquirer at the time that he was defending his grandfather, the former mayor, whom he said the guard had grabbed because they were trying to enter at a back entrance without waiting in line.

    “I saw my grandfather get grabbed and I just sort of blacked out,” Street Jr. said. His father defended him at the time, saying the security guard had initiated the altercation.

    Later that month, Street Jr. was charged in connection with a hit-and-run from the previous August that left a 14-year-old injured.

    The two cases were consolidated in Common Pleas Court, and Street Jr. pleaded guilty in August to charges of assault and causing an accident that resulted in an injury. According to prosecutors, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

    Four months later, when he was no longer working in city government, Street Jr. was briefly jailed in Delaware County following what police in Upper Darby described as a “prolonged struggle” during a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a summary offense.

  • Unmasking ICE in Philly could test the limits of local power over federal agents

    Unmasking ICE in Philly could test the limits of local power over federal agents

    One of the lasting images of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign will be the masks worn by federal immigration agents.

    The widespread use of facial coverings by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers is among the suite of tactics — agents dressed in plainclothes, wearing little identification, jumping out of unmarked cars to grab people off the street — that have fueled immigration advocates’ use of terms like “kidnappings” and “abductions.”

    Now Philadelphia lawmakers appear poised to pass legislation that would ban all officers operating in the city — including local police — from concealing their identities by wearing masks or conducting enforcement from unmarked cars.

    The question is whether the city can make that rule stick.

    Legal hurdles loom for municipalities and states attempting to regulate federal law enforcement. Local jurisdictions are generally prohibited from interfering with basic federal functions, and Trump administration officials say state- and city-level bans violate the constitutional provision that says federal law reigns supreme.

    Experts are split on whether the bill proposed by Philadelphia City Council members last week would survive a lawsuit.

    There are also practical concerns about enforcement. Violating the mask ban would be a civil infraction, meaning local police would be tasked with citing other law enforcement officers for covering their faces.

    “No doubt this will be challenged,” said Stanley Brand, a distinguished fellow at Penn State Dickinson Law. “This ordinance will be a protracted and complicated legal slog.”

    Philly City Council members will soon consider seven ‘ICE Out’ bills. Here’s what the proposals would do.
    Councilmember Kendra Brooks speaks during a news conference at City Hall to announce a package of bills aimed at pushing back against ICE enforcement on Jan. 27.

    Advocates for immigrants say that unmasking ICE agents is a safety issue, and that officers rarely identify themselves when asked, despite being required to carry badges.

    Mask use can also spur impersonators, they say. At least four people in Philadelphia have been arrested for impersonating ICE officers in the last year.

    “You see these people in your community with guns and vests and masks,” said Desi Bernette, a leader of MILPA, the Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania. “It’s very scary, and it’s not normal.”

    Philly lawmakers want to restrict cooperation with ICE and ban agents from wearing masks

    Democrats in jurisdictions across America, including Congress and the Pennsylvania General Assembly, have introduced legislation to ban ICE agents from concealing their faces. California is the furthest along in implementing a mask prohibition, and a judge is currently weighing a challenge filed by the Trump administration.

    Senate Democrats negotiating a budget deal in Washington have asked for a nationwide ban on ICE agents wearing masks in exchange for their votes to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

    And polling shows getting rid of masks is popular. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 61% of Americans believe federal agents should not wear face coverings to conceal their identities while on duty.

    ICE agents who wear masks are driven by the threat of doxxing, Fetterman says

    ICE officials say agents should have the freedom to conceal their faces while operating in a hyperpartisan political environment.

    Last year, ICE head Todd Lyons told CBS News that he was not a proponent of agents wearing masks, though he would allow it. Some officers, he said, have had private information published online, leading to death threats against them and their families.

    On Sunday, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, defended ICE officers who wear masks and said doxing is a “serious concern.”

    “They could target [agents’] families,” Fetterman said in an interview on Fox News, “and they are organizing these people to put their names out there.”

    Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., participates in a debate on June 2, 2025, in Boston.

    The Council authors of the Philadelphia bills say they are responding to constituents who are intimidated by ICE’s tactics, and they believe their legislation can withstand a legal challenge.

    “Our goal is to make sure that our folks feel safe here in the city,” said City Councilmember Kendra Brooks. “We are here to protect Philadelphians, and if that means we eventually need to go to court, that’s what would need to happen.”

    The constitutional limits on unmasking ICE

    The bill introduced last week by Brooks and Councilmember Rue Landau is part of a package of seven pieces of legislation aimed at limiting how ICE operates in Philadelphia. The proposals would bar Philadelphia employees from sharing information with ICE and ban the agency from using city property to stage raids.

    Fifteen of Council’s 17 members signed on to the package of legislation, meaning a version of it is likely to become law. Passing a bill in City Council requires nine votes, and overriding a mayoral veto takes 12. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has said her team is reviewing the legislation, which can still be amended before it becomes law.

    A veto-proof majority of Philadelphia City Council members have signed onto the ‘ICE Out’ proposal
    Anti-ICE activists demonstrate outside U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s Philadelphia office, Jan. 27, calling for an end to federal immigration enforcement policies.

    One of the two members who did not cosponsor the package was Councilmember Mike Driscoll, a Democrat who represents parts of Lower Northeast Philadelphia. He indicated that he had concerns about whether the “ICE Out” legislation would hold up in court.

    Brooks said Council members worked with attorneys to ensure the legislation is “within our scope as legislators for this city to make sure that we protect our folks against these federal attacks.”

    Brand, of Dickinson Law, said the legislation is a classic example of a conflict between two constitutional pillars: the clause that says federal law is supreme, and the 10th Amendment, which gives states powers that are not delegated to the federal government.

    He said there is precedent that the states — or, in this case, cities — cannot interfere with laws enacted by Congress, such as immigration matters.

    “If I were betting, I would bet on the federal government,” Brand said.

    But there is a gray area, he said, and that includes the fact that no law — or even regulation — says federal law enforcement agents must wear masks.

    Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who is an expert on the Constitution and conflict of laws, said if there is no agency policy, that is “free space” for states and cities to regulate.

    Roosevelt said Brooks’ legislation steers clear of other constitutional concerns because it applies to all police officers, not just federal agents.

    “If they were trying to regulate only federal agents, the question would be, ‘Why aren’t you doing that to your own police officers?’” he said. “If you single out the federal government, it looks more like you’re trying to interfere with what the federal government is doing.”

    Applying the law to local police

    Experts say part of the backlash to ICE agents covering their faces is because Americans are not used to it. Local police, sheriff’s deputies, and state troopers all work largely without hiding their faces.

    “Seeing law enforcement actions happening with federal agents in masks, that’s extremely jarring,” said Cris Ramon, an immigration consultant based in Washington. “Why are you operating outside of the boundaries of what every other law enforcement agency is doing?”

    Protesters march up Eighth Street, toward the immigration offices, during the Philly stands with Minneapolis Ice Out For Good protest at Philadelphia City Hall on Jan. 23.

    The Council legislation includes exceptions for officers wearing medical-grade masks, using protective equipment, or working undercover. It also allows facial coverings for religious purposes.

    However, the federal government could still raise First Amendment concerns, said Shaakirrah R. Sanders, an associate dean at Penn State Dickinson Law.

    The administration, she said, could argue that the city is only trying to regulate law enforcement officers and claim that would be discriminatory.

    Sanders said defending the legislation could be “very costly” and the city should consider alternatives that fall more squarely within its authority. She pointed to efforts like New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s announcement that the state would create a database for residents to upload videos of ICE interacting with the public.

    “It looks like the city wants to wield big legislative power,” Sanders said. “My alternative is more in the grassroots work, where you are the first ear for your citizens, not the regulator of the federal government.”

  • City Council seeks to stop demolitions as anti-blight measure

    City Council seeks to stop demolitions as anti-blight measure

    Late last year, some members of Philadelphia City Council began pursuing legislation to further regulate demolition.

    Philadelphia has many thousands of vacant properties, and historically, some local politicians have sought to encourage razing such structures to prevent fire risks or eliminate drug havens.

    But in the last couple of decades, as real estate development heated up in many neighborhoods, concerns emerged that potentially historic older buildings were being destroyed to make the vacant land more valuable.

    “We know that when these properties are demolished in certain communities, that typically is a sign of gentrification,” Councilmember Jeffery Young, who represents much of North Philadelphia, said at a Tuesday hearing.

    “When you demolish that property and you build up, you’re trying to make more money than the property was originally stated as a shell,” said Young, whose district also includes parts of Center City.

    Young introduced a bill last year that would ban demolition permits from being issued in his district unless a property owner had secured building permits for a new project.

    He said he saw the legislation as a means to encourage property owners to repair existing buildings and to ensure that vacant lots would not scar his district.

    “When you rehab a property, the price is typically lower than a brand-new house, and so we’re trying to keep homes affordable,” Young said, “and prevent blight from our communities.”

    Young’s bill would not apply to buildings deemed imminently dangerous by the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections.

    Last year Councilmember Jamie Gauthier passed a law containing a similar provision, but for a more tightly proscribed area that covered properties held by large higher education institutions in University City.

    The Building Industry Association (BIA) presented a litany of concerns about Young’s bill at Tuesday’s Rules Committee hearing.

    The BIA feared the legislation would delay projects, as many developers demolish structures while they are waiting for their building permits. The additional months in limbo would increase insurance, security, and financing costs, the group argued.

    The bill could also encourage bad actors to engage in dangerous behavior, the BIA said.

    “To qualify for an exception based on structural danger, certain property owners may be compelled to intentionally incur code violation or enforcement action to demonstrate instability,” said Kenn Penn, a local developer, who spoke on the BIA’s behalf. It “incentivizes the very condition that the city seeks to avoid.”

    Penn also warned about the danger of preserving long-vacant properties.

    “The bill would prevent demolition of vacant and unsecured structures that are highly susceptible to unlawful occupation,” Penn said. “Philadelphia has already experienced multiple fires this winter, many historically linked to squatters and abandoned buildings.”

    Penn asked Young to limit the legislation to properties that do not have a vacant property license.

    But the bill passed from the committee with only technical amendments.

    “I understand the impacts this will have on the development community,” Young said. “But what I think this bill does is ensures that property owners maintain their properties in a prudent manner.”