Miami-Dade Mayor Will Comply With President Trump's Immigration Executive Order, Ends De Facto Sanctuary Status

Matt Vespa | January 27, 2017 11:00 AM

President Donald J. Trump signed executive orders that targeted sanctuary cities. Mayors from across the country—Portland, Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles—vowed to defy the new president’s directive. It once again we see the urban/rural divide—with the former ready to fight to the death to avoid complying with the new order in the same manner conservative fought Obamacare through lawsuits. It could get messy, but the order has been given. One county in Florida is going to rollback its de facto sanctuary status. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued orders to his jails to start complying with President Trump’s new directive (via Miami Herald):

Miami-Dade Mayor drops sanctuary policy. Right decision. Strong! https://t.co/MtPvaDC4jM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2017

Gimenez cited an executive order signed Wednesday by President Donald Trump that threatened to cut federal grants for any counties or cities that don’t cooperate fully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since 2013, Miami-Dade has refused to indefinitely detain inmates who are in the country illegally and wanted by ICE — not based on principle, but because the federal government doesn’t fully reimburse the county for the expense.

In light of the provisions of the Executive Order, I direct you and your staff to honor all immigration detainer requests received from the Department of Homeland Security,” Gimenez wrote Daniel Junior, the interim director of the corrections and rehabilitation department, in a brief, three-paragraph memo.

Unlike cities like San Francisco, Miami-Dade never declared itself a “sanctuary” and has resisted the label ever since the Justice Department listed the county as one in a May 2016 report. Foreseeing Trump’s crackdown on “sanctuary” jurisdictions, the county asked the feds to review its status last year. A decision is still pending.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Gimenez, a Republican who attended Trump’s inauguration last week but said he voted for Hillary Clinton, said he made a financial decision. Last year, the county declined to hold some 100 inmates wanted by the feds. Keeping them in local jails would have cost about $52,000 — a relative drop in the bucket for a county with a total annual budget of $7 billion.

In contrast, the county’s 2017 budget shows it’s counting on receiving some $355 million in federal funds — money that subsidizes elderly services, beds for the homeless, police officers and other government expenses.