Pedro Pablo Cortés
Miami (EFE).- Authorities forcibly removed an activist from a public hearing this Thursday, who was questioning an agreement signed between the jails of Miami-Dade County, the most populous in Florida, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Dozens of civil groups packed the Miami-Dade commissioners’ meeting to oppose the pact that allows ICE to confine foreigners in the county’s jail system.
The Miami-Dade jail system is the eighth largest in the country, there are about 470 detained migrants, around 10% of the total prison population.
During the proceedings, the commissioners postponed the hearing upon revealing that the agreement was already in effect because of a state law pushed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Therefore, the vote would only be to ratify it and define the payment that the county must receive from ICE and the data it must share with them.
After a woman stood up and asked for clarity on the rules from the county commission president Anthony Rodríguez, four agents subdued her, expelled her from the venue, and handcuffed her for being considered disruptive.
“Let go of me! I have a right to understand this process!” the woman exclaimed whilst being dragged on the floor by authorities.
Other activists in the room shouted in her defense: “Let her go! Let her speak! Cowards!” and “Look at your last names: Bermudez, Gonzalez, Rodríguez.”
Outrage over ICE agreements with Miami
The agreement states that ICE must pay 50 dollars to the county to keep a migrant confined for 48 hours in a local prison and also grants the agency “reasonable access to all detainees” and “discretion” over what information to share.
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, backs the accord that could allow ICE to prevent the county from publishing information about the detainees, which activists fear might mean they would “disappear from the system”.
The mayor insisted that she must sign the pact because the governor, Republican DeSantis, has pushed laws that require authorities in the 67 counties to cooperate with ICE.
“This is not something about which I have a choice about. This is the law of Florida and it was required that this agreement be signed. It came to board as a routine matter for ratification,” argued the official.
Alert over migrant detention centers
Complaints from activists about the “inhuman conditions” of migrants detained in Florida keep growing. On Monday a Canadian who was under custody of ICE died in the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
Additionally, DeSantis announced on Wednesday that he will build a migrant detention center in a National Guard camp southwest of Jacksonville, on top of the controversial ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ being built this week in the middle of the natural area of the Everglades.
María Bilbao, campaign coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee in Florida, denounced that “Governor DeSantis is using cruelty as a political theater.”
“He wants to build a detention camp as a political theater in the Everglades, surrounded by alligators and the Florida extreme heat on land that befalls to this county,” she denounced at the hearing.
Activist Luisa Suárez accused the author of the proposal, Commissioner Roberto J. González, of “hypocrisy” for supporting ICE even though he immigrated to the United States from Guatemala at the age of 2.
“You wouldn’t be in the US or your county commissioner seat if masked violent aggressors took you illegally away inside an immigration court while your lawyer was in the bathroom or while the judge was printing a document that protected you from inhumane detention. So I don’t understand the hypocrisy,” she expressed before having her microphone forcibly removed. EFE
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