Frustration and fear.
Those feelings were shared Thursday by immigrant advocates, members of the public and Miami's elected leaders as calls mount for Miami to exit its agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Demonstrators packed into City Hall Thursday morning as the commission prepared to discuss its involvement in a 287(g) agreement that deputizes the Miami Police Department to perform immigration enforcement.
" If [commissioners] do know their communities, if they have a relationship with their constituents, they know very well that 287(g) agreements are hurting them. This is very clear to us. And for those of our neighbors who are not immigrants and feel that they are not impacted by this, it's time to wake up," said Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, one of state's largest immigrant advocacy groups.
The coalition and civil rights groups, including the Workers Circle, the American Friends Service Committee, and the League of Women Voters of Florida called on city leaders to rescind the agreement they entered into a year ago, warning that it would be a political albatross around their necks come election time.
The city commission passed a resolution entering into the agreement last year at the request of former MPD Chief Manny Morales.
The Florida Legislature made it illegal for municipalities to be so-called "sanctuary cities" for migrants, and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier took the position that refusing to enter into a 287(g) agreement constituted de-facto sanctuary status.
READ MORE: Despite public outcry, City of Miami joins immigration enforcement program for local police
Chief Morales and City Attorney George Wysong said they feared retaliation from the state if the city did not voluntarily enter the agreement. During a lawsuit filed by the City of South Miami, the state's attorneys clarified that taking no action related to 287(g) was not illegal, so that city did not collaborate with ICE.
The Discussion
Miami Commission Chairwoman Christine King, who voted against the agreement last year, raised the discussion item on 287(g) to have the police department clarify exactly what kind of immigration enforcement its officers are doing.
City Manager James Reyes explained that MPD currently has two detectives trained by ICE to perform immigration enforcement. Those detectives, he claims, only investigate a person's immigration status if they have already been arrested on a criminal charge. To date, Reyes said, MPD has only applied 14 immigration detainers to individuals who have committed serious crimes or are repeat offenders.
"The biggest message I want to get across today is that as of today, we have not applied a detainer to an individual who did not get charged with a crime," Reyes said, responding to concerns from public commenters who said they feared being racially profiled by police and stopped simply for the sake of an immigration interview.
Data analysis from the New York Times found the Miami field office for ICE led the nation in immigration arrests as of this past March. More than 41,000 arrests were reported out of the Miami office, outpacing other hotspot cities for immigration enforcement like Dallas and Atlanta.
ICE's Miami office encompasses eastern and southern Florida, as well as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Reyes' assurance was cold comfort to Chairwoman King and most of her colleagues, especially after Thursday's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the Trump administration to strip Haitian migrants of Temporary Protected Status. Miami is home to one of the nation's largest Haitian communities.
"People are scared. My residents are scared. In District 5, we have all walks of life," said King, whose commission district includes Little Haiti.
Commissioners asked if there was a way to exit the agreement, to which City Attorney Wysong reiterated his fears that Gov. Ron DeSantis could remove the commissioners from office or veto $7.5 million in appropriated funds earmarked for Miami.
"$7.5 million is worth saving a life or a family," King rebutted.
Mayor Higgins
Notably absent from the meeting was City Mayor Eileen Higgins, who is overseas at a climate conference in London.
Higgins ran a mayoral campaign on a pro-immigrant platform, and told WLRN when she was elected last fall: "There's no reason in the City of Miami that our police department should be in the job of federal immigration enforcement."
The agreement has nonetheless remained in place over the last seven months of Higgins' administration.
In a statement to WLRN on Wednesday, Higgins said she remains opposed to 287(g), but the decision to exit the agreement lies with the city commission.
"If I had been mayor at the time it was approved, I would not have signed it. I did not support it then, and I do not support it now. Because the City Commission approved the agreement, ending it requires action by the City Commission. I am glad the Commission plans to have a meaningful discussion about it this week," Higgins said.
The mayor has received backlash in recent weeks from immigrant groups calling on her to make good on her campaign promise and put legislation on the commission's agenda to rescind the agreement.
"The City of Miami made a mistake in signing on to its 287g agreement in the first place and still has a chance to correct that mistake," said Thomas Kennedy, spokesperson for the Florida Immigrant Coalition. "The fear that police-ICE collaboration has fostered in our city leads to the underreporting of crime by immigrants who fear they will be targets of immigration enforcement. Miami is a city of immigrants represented by a commission of immigrants, they should act accordingly."
Thursday's meeting ended with no action from the city, but commissioners said they had much to think about. They encouraged members of the public to reach out to their offices if they experience any instances of being targeted for immigration enforcement unrelated to a crime.
Contact information for City of Miami officials and commissioners can be found here.
