Miami

Miami-Dade Violating Rights of Inmates Held for ICE: Judge

The ruling was a rebuke of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giminez's decision to allow county jails to hold immigrants awaiting deportation by federal agents

It is unconstitutional for Miami-Dade county to hold inmates in jail beyond the time they would otherwise be released at the request of federal immigration authorities, a Florida judge ruled Friday morning.

The ruling by Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch was a rebuke of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Giminez's decision to allow county jails to hold immigrants awaiting deportation by federal agents, citing concerns about losing federal money.

Federal agents have up to 48 hours to pick up an undocumented immigrant being held in a county jail.

The county's policy was challenged by 45-year-old James LaCroix, a Haitian national ordered deported after being convicted of felony charges of habitually driving without a valid license.

Hirsch noted that the practice "gives rise to two inequities," forcing the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department to house inmates "in whom neither the state nor the county has any ongoing interest" and resulting in the "continued incarceration" of individuals who haven't been charged with any crime.

Hirsch argued in his decision that the policy violates the 10th Amendment's limits on federal power over states.

The 10th Amendment is "a source of frustration to those who dream of wielding power in unprecedented ways or to unprecedented degrees. But America was not made for those who dream of power," Hirsch wrote. "America was made for those with power to dream."

On Tuesday, Judge Hirsch sentenced LaCroix to the five weeks he'd already served in jail, but he was not released because Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked the county to hold him pursuant to a deportation order.

Attorneys representing LaCroix filed a writ of habeus corpus demanding his release, but he was picked up by immigration agents Wednesday before Hirsch could hear arguments on Thursday.

Since LaCroix is already in federal custody, the state judge's ruling will have no effect on his detention pending deportation, according to his attorney Philip Reizenstein.

Still, in ordering county attorneys to respond to the writ by Thursday, Hirsch said his ruling would not be moot because LaCroix raised an "issue capable of repetition."

Miami-Dade County said Friday morning it would appeal the decision with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

"This is a federal issue,"  Giminez said in a statement following the ruling. "Now, the judge does what he does, but I've already spoken to our county attorney and our county attorney does not feel that he has standing so it depends on the ruling and if the ruling goes against what we're doing then we'll appeal it to the court of appeals right away."

The county has received at least 52 requests for so-called ICE holds since the county reversed its years-old policy to not honor them, unless the federal government paid for the additional costs of incarceration.

After President Donald Trump threatened to withhold federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities that offer protections for immigrants living in the country illegally or decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

In his decision, Hirsch said the threat of withholding federal funds from the county was a constitutional bridge too far.

"Coercion achieved by financial starvation is no less effective than coercion achieved at sword's point. The former may take a little longer than the latter; but it may be more painful, too," he wrote.

But Hirsch's decision did not explicitly order Miami-Dade jails to stop honoring requests from federal immigration authorities to hold undocumented immigrants for deportation. For the moment, Friday's ruling creates legal precedent only in Judge Hirch's courtroom. 

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