As Honolulu’s Charter Commission conducts its once-a-decade review of the city charter, one proposal — P045 — has advanced concerning the role of local police in immigration enforcement.

This has understandably stirred strong feelings about immigration, legal and illegal alike, even though the proposal itself is not primarily about immigration policy. But Honolulu residents should take P045 seriously no matter where we stand on immigration.

Why A Charter Amendment?

One reason this proposal deserves serious consideration is that charter amendments are often used not only to create new powers, but also to affirm and stabilize civic expectations that communities already believe should guide public institutions.

In other words, charter language can serve to confirm understood norms and practices — to make explicit what residents believe the role of local government already is, or should be.

That isn’t unusual or radical. In many areas of civic life, charter provisions exist precisely because communities want certain expectations and institutional values to remain stable and understandable over time.

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What Does P045 Actually Propose?

As currently written, the proposal seeks to: (i) affirm HPD’s duty to protect the constitutional rights of all persons regardless of immigration status, (ii) protect access to civic institutions like courts, hospitals, schools, and places of worship, (iii) require verification of legal authority and agency identity before HPD assists immigration-related enforcement activity (iv) prevent impersonation or unauthorized enforcement actions.

Importantly, it does not attempt to prohibit lawful federal immigration enforcement or override federal authority.

The civic expectations P045 seeks to affirm are, at their core, that:

● The Honolulu Police Department’s primary responsibility is protecting the safety and safeguarding the constitutional rights of the people of Honolulu.
● Everyone should be able to access schools, hospitals, courts, and places of worship without fear or confusion about unauthorized enforcement activity.
● Local officers should verify legal authority and agency identity before participating in immigration-related enforcement actions.

More broadly, the proposal reflects an expectation already held by many residents that local policing should remain grounded in public safety, transparency, lawful process, and clearly understood institutional boundaries.

It also reflects longstanding constitutional principles of due process, equal protection, lawful process, and accountable government applying to all people within the United States and Hawai‘i.

Why Now?

Communities function best when people understand the responsibilities and boundaries of public institutions. Residents should know what local police are responsible for, what they are not responsible for, and what role different levels of government play.

Clarity and predictability matter: especially when fear, rumor, and political conflict are already running high.

That clarity affects more than politics. It affects whether we feel comfortable reporting crimes, cooperating as witnesses, seeking emergency help, or interacting with public institutions generally. Uncertainty spreads outward into schools, workplaces, churches, neighborhoods, and families.

Recent events around the country illustrate why this matters in practice, not just in theory. Over the past two years, national reporting and federal bulletins have documented repeated cases of individuals impersonating immigration officers in order to intimidate, rob, extort, assault, or manipulate vulnerable people.

Reported incidents in multiple states have included:

• A man in Raleigh, North Carolina, posing as ICE to threaten and sexually assault a woman.
• Men in Indiantown, Florida, posing as ICE to conduct fake traffic stops; a man in Galveston, Texas, poses as ICE to detain people.
• A woman in Bay County, Florida, posing as ICE to kidnap her ex-girlfriend’ wife.
• Men in NYC posing as ICE to rob a restaurant.
• A man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pretending to be ICE to burglarize a home.
• A church employee in Houston pretending to be ICE to extort a worker at a small business.

The point isn’t that P045 would eliminate impersonators or resolve every disagreement surrounding immigration enforcement. It wouldn’t.

But these incidents illustrate something important and urgent: when the boundaries between different forms of law enforcement become unclear to the public, that ambiguity itself can become a serious public safety concern.

Whether one ultimately supports or opposes P045, the proposal is best considered and debated not as a dramatic restructuring of local government, but as an effort to clarify and affirm existing expectations about the role of local institutions, public trust, and community safety.

Reasonable people can and do disagree about immigration policy.

We can disagree about the proper scope of federal enforcement priorities. We can disagree about the exact wording or legal structure of P045 itself. But at a time when national politics increasingly rewards outrage and suspicion, Honolulu can and should plan purposefully about the kind of relationship we want between communities and public institutions here at home.