A Washington state judge has ruled that the Adams County Sheriff's Office broke state law for years by quietly feeding jail information to federal immigration agents, and has ordered the practice stopped. Spokane County Superior Court Judge Marla L. Polin ruled on Friday, November 13, 2026, that the county violated the Keep Washington Working Act, the 2019 state law that limits how local police and jails may help civil immigration enforcement.
Source: Law360
In her findings of fact and conclusions of law in State of Washington v. Adams County Sheriff's Office, case number 25-2-01212-32, Judge Polin found that sheriff's personnel routinely emailed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection updated lists of people in county custody, and disclosed details about inmates' anticipated release dates to federal agents. The court also found that the sheriff's office failed to update its written policies to comply with the 2019 law, according to the Washington Attorney General's Office and reporting by the Washington State Standard.
According to the Attorney General's Office, the court found the county also let federal agents interview people in custody about noncriminal matters without first getting the person's written consent, and held people in jail based solely on civil immigration warrants or detainers. Judge Polin wrote that Adams County violated the Act each and every time it sent a new in-custody list to federal immigration officials, a routine practice that ran from 2019 into mid-2023.
How the case reached a judge
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown's office first raised concerns in a 2022 letter to Sheriff Dale Wagner and Prosecuting Attorney Randy Flyckt. The Attorney General's Office said county officials aided Immigration and Customs Enforcement more than 200 times between May 2019, when the Act took effect, and December 2021. After more than two years of unresolved negotiations, the state sued in March 2025. The case was decided after a two-day bench trial in July 2026.
The ruling records that between May 21, 2021, and March 10, 2023, the sheriff's office released at least six people directly to Border Patrol from the jail, and that three of them had no local charges pending against them. It also records that a sergeant let a Border Patrol agent speak with at least one of two men he had arrested in March 2023 without telling them they could refuse.
What the court has ordered
Judge Polin issued a permanent injunction. The sheriff's office is barred from compiling, transmitting or disclosing nonpublic booking records, daily in-custody logs or inmate release times to civil immigration personnel, must revise its policies to align with the Keep Washington Working Act, and must train its staff on the policy. The Attorney General's Office says this is the first time a state court has interpreted and applied the 2019 law.
The county had argued that federal law, including 8 U.S.C. 1373, which bars states and localities from restricting the sharing of information about a person's citizenship or immigration status, conflicts with the state statute, and that the Act is unconstitutional. Judge Polin rejected that argument, holding that the state law is a valid exercise of state police power.
"This is not about politics, race, or immigration status. It is about public safety, accountability, and the ability of law enforcement agencies to work together to protect the communities we serve," Sheriff Dale Wagner wrote in a statement after the ruling. He says he plans to appeal.
Why this matters beyond Adams County
Adams County is an eastern Washington county whose seat is Ritzville and whose largest city is Othello. The ruling is the first judicial test of Washington's sanctuary-style law, and it draws a clear line for every sheriff and jail in the state: routine cooperation with civil immigration enforcement, of the kind many agencies treated as ordinary paperwork, is unlawful in Washington unless it fits the Act. For immigrant families, including Punjabi and other South Asian residents of the state, the decision affects what happens in the hours after any arrest, when release-date information shared with ICE can decide whether a person walks out of jail or into federal custody.
What happens next: the county must now bring its written policies and staff training into compliance while Sheriff Wagner pursues the appeal he has announced. No appeal had been formally reported as filed at the time of the ruling on Friday. Attorney General Nick Brown hailed the outcome as a victory for the rule of law in a statement announcing the result.