What Ralph Rosado's Election Means for Miami's ICE Agreement

With District 4 Commissioner Ralph Rosado's swearing-in on Tuesday, political attention has turned to a previously deferred decision on whether to deputize the city's police force as quasi-immigration agents.

South Florida cities like Coral Gables, Doral, Hialeah, Homestead, Miami Springs, and West Miami have already signed the 287(g) agreement, which gives municipal law enforcement officers authority to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents with deportation arrests. Miami City Commission deferred a vote in April to allow District 4 to elect a new commissioner following the death of Manolo Reyes.

Commissioner Damian Pardo tells New Times that commissioners at Tuesday's meeting are likely to once again defer the agenda item, which is noted for deferral on the city's website.

Pardo was the only one to respond to New Times’ inquiries about the upcoming vote, stating his opposition.

"I trust our police department," Pardo tells New Times. "They're very diverse, and I do trust them to implement it in a way that's neutral. But that's not enough because it's the climate we're creating that I'm worried about."

Pardo says he remembers South Floridians harassing his mother and grandparents for speaking Spanish in a grocery store decades ago.

"I don't want to go back to that climate," he tells New Times.

Pardo hopes Commissioners Christine King and Miguel Gabela join him in voting against the item at an upcoming meeting, he says.

He noted he's ultimately unsure how everyone will vote because commissioners are barred from asking one another how they plan to vote before a meeting, but Pardo says he thinks Commissioners Joe Carollo, Rosado, and Mayor Francis Suarez will likely vote in favor.

Carollo previously told the Miami Herald he's "certainly looking carefully" at Los Angeles, where President Trump deployed the National Guard in response to protests against ICE, as he weighs his decision.

At his election night watch party last week, Rosado said he had not yet decided how he would vote on the 287(g) agreement.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in March, began threatening to withhold state funding from municipalities refusing to sign 287(g) agreements and aiding in Trump's nationwide immigration crackdown.

Immigrant rights advocates have raised concerns that the agreements could lead to racially biased and unlawful policing.

In 2012, the Obama administration discontinued the 287(g) task force model because of concerns that it led to racial profiling and discrimination, particularly against Latino communities. President Trump relaunched the program in January.