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Miami-Dade Disputes Claim Its Cooperation With Trump On Immigration Costing Millions

Tim Padgett
/
WLRN.org
South Florida immigration activists protest last week in front of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium, where Mayor Carlos Gimenez was about to give his State of the County address.

It’s been more than a year since Miami-Dade County agreed to comply with federal requests to hand over undocumented immigrants –  and immigrant advocates claim the controversial decision has cost Miami-Dade millions more than expected.

Last year Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez ordered the county’s jails to turn over to the feds detainees who are undocumented immigrants. His reason: President Trump threatened to withhold some $300 million in federal grants.

Immigrant advocacy groups say the county is paying anyway. Their new report – "The Cost of Complicity" – claims that honoring the federal detainer requests has cost Miami-Dade almost $14 million. It says that’s largely because the immigrant detainees are spending more time in lock-up than anticipated.

“Their time in local Miami-Dade County jail goes up dramatically: 56 days longer than the average person arrested in Miami-Dade County,” said Alana Greer, the report's author and co-director of the Community Justice Project.

But Mayor Gimenez's office argues the report uses flawed and outdated data – and county officials estimate the length of stay for immigration detainees is only 7 days longer than average.

Last month Miami-Dade asked the Trump Administration to start reimbursing the county for the extra costs. But Greer says the report should convince the mayor to rescind his order.

“Miami-Dade County shouldn’t be the face of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda," Greer said.

The Florida Immigrant Coalition and WeCount! also took part in the report.

Tim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida. Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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