ANN ARBOR, MI - Ann Arbor is sending a message that it doesn't support President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

The City Council voted 8-1 Monday night, April 3, to give final approval to a new ordinance that spells out when city police officers and other public servants can and can't ask about someone's immigration status, codifying the city's existing practice of generally not soliciting such information.

After the vote, the council received a standing ovation from residents in the audience, some of them waving United States flags.

"This ordinance is a tiny step along the way on a path we're going to take as a council to ensure that we don't get mired in the intolerance of the current federal administration," said Council Member Jack Eaton, D-4th Ward.

"It merely prohibits the collection of information. The federal government can't require us to turn over information that we don't collect."

The ordinance was co-sponsored by Mayor Christopher Taylor and Council Members Eaton, Sumi Kailasapathy and Chuck Warpehoski.

Taylor and Council Member Graydon Krapohl, D-4th Ward, were absent Monday night.

Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Ward, cast the lone vote against the ordinance, worrying Trump might follow through on threats to cut off federal funding for communities deemed "sanctuary jurisdictions."

Lumm said she couldn't support the ordinance after a majority of council members disregarded the city attorney's suggestion of including extra language saying nothing in the ordinance should be construed or applied in any manner that causes a violation of "any valid federal law or regulation that imposes a legal duty or restriction on the city or its public servants."

Lumm raised concerns about that during deliberations. After City Attorney Stephen Postema declined to publicly offer advice on the matter, the council took a 16-minute break and had a closed-door meeting with the attorney.

Afterward, only Lumm and Council Member Kirk Westphal, D-2nd Ward, were supportive of including the extra language expressing the city's intent to comply with federal law. The ordinance still states that nothing in it should be construed as an attempt to prohibit any public servant from exchanging information with the federal government regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any person as required by Section 1373 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code.

"This ordinance does not declare us a sanctuary city," Eaton, D-4th Ward, emphasized. "Because, in fact, the term sanctuary city doesn't have any real legal meaning and it just mires us in a fight that we don't need to fight."

Eaton said Ann Arbor has a long history of inclusion, and the new ordinance is "just one tiny component" of a continuing effort to be inclusive and tolerant.

He said the city's police department already has practices and policies that are consistent with the new ordinance and the city isn't violating federal law.

"Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, not a local responsibility," he said. "We have many things that our local police officers should be doing rather than enforcing federal laws. We have no duty to assist."

Eaton said there still are times when the city wants its police to be present when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are doing enforcement.

"Especially under this current federal administration," he said. "For example, if ICE comes to a home and takes one parent away, we want our staff to be there to secure the home, to make sure the remainder of the family is safe."

Eaton said there also are times when the city will have to collect immigration information. For example, he said, there are international treaties that require the city to report to an embassy the arrest of a foreign national.

"There are times when we will want to be aware of where a potential criminal may flee after having been arrested," Eaton added. "So there are times when we will ask for immigration-status information, but we are trying to contain that to just when it's absolutely necessary."

The ordinance lists a handful of exceptions to the general rule against asking about someone's immigration status.

First, it allows police and other public servants to solicit such information from someone who is the subject of an investigation, but only when relevant to the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense. It also allows it when attempting to determine the identity of someone arrested for or charged with a crime punishable by 93 days or more in jail, and that's to be solely for the purpose of determining the identity of the person or assessing their flight risk.

Asking about immigration status also is allowed to determine if consular notification is required or should be offered under the Vienna Convention.

City police and other public servants also will be allowed to ask for immigration information to comply with judicial warrants and subpoenas, and when required by any federal, state or city law or program as a condition of eligibility for certain services. It also will be allowed for the purpose of completing I-9 forms, and, when relevant, in making hiring and payroll withholding decisions.

The ordinance states the taking of someone's fingerprints, authorized use of Michigan's Law Enforcement Information Network and questions concerning a person's birth country are not included under the prohibited "solicitation."

Kailasapathy expressed some concerns about allowing police to ask where people were born, but she still said she considers it a strong ordinance.

"This is baby steps, and we will be following what's happening at federal level," she said. "And it will be a continuous process to make sure that whatever happens at federal level doesn't diminish the kind of values we hold so dear in Ann Arbor in terms of justice and liberty, and justice for all."

Council Member Zachary Ackerman, D-3rd Ward, said undocumented immigrants are members of the Ann Arbor community. He said they're neighbors, family members, co-workers and parents of local school children.

"Washtenaw County has 41,000 residents who are foreign born, and I couldn't tell you their immigration status and I don't want to be able to tell you their immigration status," Ackerman said. "Here at the city, we are charged with protecting the public health, the public welfare and the public safety of this community and immigration status has nothing to do with any of those three."

Ackerman noted a woman in the audience was holding a sign advocating for letting police do their jobs.

"I think you've got it exactly right," he said. "Their job isn't to enforce immigration policy. It's to keep us safe, and we're safest when everyone feels as though they have equal access to the safety that our police department can provide."

Before voting against the ordinance, Lumm said she could not support something that places the city's federal funding at risk. She expressed concerns that it could create extra burdens for city taxpayers.

Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, said she thought the council was being put in an awful situation. But as for the risk of being targeted by Trump, Grand argued there's no community that isn't being targeted right now with the federal budget cuts he's proposing. She called the cuts devastating.

City Administrator Howard Lazarus recently provided a memo to council that included a list of $52 million in federal grant funds that came into the community in fiscal year 2015-16, much of it through the county.

He and the city attorney said last month they didn't believe any of those funds would be at risk as a result of the council's passage of the ordinance.

"I'm currently less worried about protecting our funding, because I don't know that we're going to get any of it anyway, and that sure does look like the intent at this point," said Council Member Jason Frenzel, D-1st Ward.

"I understand the need to be fiscally responsible and to mind the public purse," said Warpehoski, D-5th Ward.

"That said, I see human rights as more important than taxpayer rights, so I'm willing to take some risks to help protect our community."

Warpehoski said he sees the new ordinance as something that helps protect public safety in Ann Arbor.

"If people are holding back from contacting our police department because they're worried about their own immigration status, their roommate's immigration status, their loved one's immigration status, and they're not reporting crimes they're victim to or witness to or know something about, that puts us all at more risk," he said.

"If somebody is holding off on pulling a building permit and getting work that she or he has done inspected, because they're worried they might be asked about their immigration status when they go into city hall, that un-inspected work puts us all at risk. I see this ordinance as one step to ensure that we are protecting the human rights of people in our community, as well as the public safety as a whole. That said, I do believe that it's on firm legal ground in terms of compliance with federal laws, and so I think the case to challenge us on this ordinance is slim."

Warpehoski said he still plans to bring forward a companion resolution, possibly on April 17, outlining more protections for immigrants in the community.

Ackerman said he appreciated that so many people showed up to recent council meetings and advocated for passage of the ordinance.

"I want to keep that energy going," he said, encouraging residents to go advocate for passage of similar policies in other communities.

Ackerman also encouraged everyone, regardless of immigration status, to sign up for a Washtenaw County ID card, which is available for $25 to anyone in the county, including undocumented immigrants.

"One of the biggest impediments to being an equal citizen in this society is access to identification," he said, adding it's important that the county ID is more than just an ID for undocumented immigrants or else it's just a second-class ID.

Ackerman also encouraged residents to let council members know what else they can do in terms of next steps.

"Because these areas of municipal policy are new," he said. "This is a scary time and we're responding."

Trump issued executive orders in January, calling for immigration enforcement reforms and threatening to punish so-called "sanctuary jurisdictions" that "willfully violate federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States." He directed executive departments and agencies to employ all lawful means to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week repeated Trump's threat that certain jurisdictions could lose federal funds, saying state and local governments would not be eligible for Justice Department grants for law enforcement if they could not certify compliance with Section 1373 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code.

While Trump has promised to crack down on immigrants who are in the country without authorization, The Washington Post on Tuesday, April 4, published a list of things about immigration that haven't changed under Trump.

"There's no question that under the Trump administration, far more of the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants are vulnerable to deportation," the Post reported. "But his predecessor, Barack Obama, also deported thousands of people who were never convicted of any crime, including last year."