Miami-Dade is now the first major U.S. metropolitan to submit to President Donald Trump’s call to end “Sanctuary Cities.”
County mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered Miami-Dade jails to comply with federal immigration detention requests, citing Trump’s threat to gut federal funding for counties or cities that don’t fully cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Miami Herald reported. It’s unclear whether the county, which has resisted the “sanctuary” label, would be affected by the executive action signed on Wednesday.
Potentially at risk is about $355 million in federal funding the county has budgeted for 2017, according to the Herald.
In 2013, Miami-Dade stopped complying with federal immigration requests to hold inmates who are in the country illegally. Commissioner Sally Heyman, who sponsored the measure four years ago, told the newspaper she was working on legislation that would prevent Miami-Dade from being a target of the president’s executive action.
Trump replied to the news article on Twitter Thursday, tweeting: “Miami-Dade Mayor drops sanctuary policy. Right decision. Strong!”
The proposal is part of the administration’s promise to “crack down” on cities that protect undocumented immigrants, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to sue the White House if it follows through on Trump’s executive order. The city receives more than $8 billion in federal funding a year and could lose roughly $7 billion, according to a report. [Miami Herald] – Katherine Kallergis