Miami Mayor bows to Trump as he makes his town the first sanctuary city to accept President Trump's demands as he orders jails to cooperate with immigration officials.
President Trump has praised the mayor of Miami-Dade after he ordered the city's jails to comply with the crackdown on 'sanctuary' counties.
Donald Trump has issued an executive order directing federal agencies to take away funding from self-proclaimed 'sanctuary cities' that limit cooperation with immigration authorities.
Unlike cities like San Francisco, Miami-Dade never officially labelled itself a 'sanctuary', but since 2013 has refused to indefinitely detain inmates who are in the country illegally and wanted by ICE.
However, that still landed the city on the list of 'sanctuaries' in the Justice Department's May 2016 report.
On Thursday, fearing cuts of millions of dollars, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who said he voted for Hillary Clinton in the last election, decided to make the city's position clear.
'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 to Daniel Junior, the interim director of the corrections and rehabilitation department.
The memo effectively means that Miami-Dade can no longer be considered a safe port for immigrants in the country illegally.
President Trump has since tweeted his support for the decision.
'Miami-Dade Mayor drops sanctuary policy. Right decision. Strong!,' he wrote on Thursday.
Last year, the county refused to detain around 100 illegal immigrants wanted by the authorities, on the grounds that it would have cost $52,000 our of their $7 billion annual budget.
But the country receives millions in federal funding for elderly care, homeless shelters and more, according to the Miami Herald.
'I want to make sure we don't put in jeopardy the millions of funds we get from the federal government for a $52,000 issue,' he said. 'It doesn't mean that we're going to be arresting more people. It doesn't mean that we're going to be enforcing any immigration laws.'
Immigration groups were preparing to fight Trump's executive order on Wednesday.
Lawyers for the potential challengers pointed to court rulings that said the federal government can only withhold funds to local jurisdictions if the money is directly tied to the behavior it objects to.
Trump had previously promised that even if a sanctuary city was penalized with cuts, the police departments would be protected.
Source: DailyMail
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