Chaos at Miami-Dade commission as officers drag out objector to new ICE jails agreement

Miami Herald

5 hours ago

Chaos erupted at a Miami-Dade Commission meeting on Thursday as opponents of an ICE agreement with county jails were dragged out of the chambers after objecting to the board declining to vote on the deal.
County sheriff's deputies dragged out a 36-year-old woman who ignored an officer who told her not to speak as the commission's chair, Anthony Rodriguez, explained he would bar future public comments on the issue if any person chose to speak at Thursday's meeting. The woman, identified as Camila Ramos, collided with a sign as multiple deputies dragged her out of the chambers and was pushed to the floor in the lobby before being removed to a commission office. The chaos prompted other small scuffles with law enforcement during a chaotic confrontation outside the second-floor chambers at the Stephen P. Clark Center in downtown Miami.
The incidents marked the most chaotic moment at the commission chambers since the board agreed in 2017, during the first weeks of the first Trump administration, to extend jail time for local inmates sought by ICE for deportation.
Earlier this year, Miami-Dade approved a formal cooperation agreement with ICE for the county jail system. Those agreements are now mandated by Florida law. The item on the agenda Tuesday was a modification of that agreement that included reimbursement provisions for local inmates held at Miami-Dade jails when sought for deportation. Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, recommended approval.
But before the scheduled vote, Commissioner Oliver Gilbert asked to defer the vote indefinitely because Levine Cava has already signed the agreement. Rodriguez agreed and told the audience they could still speak on the item, but if it ever came up for a vote again, there would not be a second opportunity for anybody to speak in the future.
Ramos was already near the dais, awaiting her chance to speak. She asked for clarification for Rodriguez's instructions when a plain-clothes deputy told to remain silent. She objected and then was forcibly moved from where she stood. Members of the audience objected, with multiple people following her and the deputies outside the chambers. That prompted orders for people to stand back as Ramos was pushed to the ground by deputies.
The modification of a cooperation agreement that Florida law mandates for all jails brought warnings of ICE being able to 'disappear' inmates whose names would otherwise be listed on a public website for loved ones to search. County administrators denied that and said the disputed restrictions on public records in the new agreement already exist under federal law. Levine Cava's administration said the agreement on Tuesday's agenda is required by Florida law.
'This is not something about which I have a choice,' Levine Cava said later in the meeting. 'This is the law. ... It doesn't mean it is the wish of this body.'