Attorney General Jeff Sessions finds ally in Miami in fight against sanctuary cities

MIAMI — Attorney General Jeff Sessions used a trip to this southern city on Wednesday to thank local officials for becoming the first in the nation to fully comply with President Trump's demands to help with immigration enforcement.

Trump and Sessions have tried to get cities and counties to abandon so-called "sanctuary city" policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities by threatening to withhold federal grants. Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez agreed to change the county's policies, but leaders in other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, have fought back.

Without providing any evidence linking undocumented immigrants with higher rates of crime, Sessions compared the soaring murder rates in Chicago with plummeting murder rates in Miami, hinting that illegal immigration was to blame. 

"We cannot continue giving taxpayer money to cities that actively undermine the safety and efficacy of federal law enforcement efforts," Sessions said during the appearance at PortMiami. “So to all sanctuary jurisdictions across the country, I say: Miami-Dade is doing it, other cities are doing it, and so can you.”

Sessions’ comments made for a unique scene: the Cuban-American mayor of a county where more than half of the 2.7 million residents are foreign born being publicly praised for helping federal immigration efforts.

That scene sickened immigration advocates in Miami who say Gimenez stabbed them in the back when he bowed to all of Trump’s demands. Thomas Kennedy, deputy political director of FLIC Votes, a group that defends immigrants and conducts voter participation drives, said Gimenez was allowing himself to be used by the Trump administration in its quest to push out anti-immigrant propaganda.

“Miami-Dade County was the first to give in to that threat and comply with the anti-immigrant crackdown,” Kennedy said. The fact that Sessions personally visited Miami and publicly praised Gimenez was, “adding insult to injury.”

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Gimenez has said he needed to change the county’s policies because he could not risk any of the $355 million the county received in 2017.

Billionaire Mike Fernandez, a health care executive who immigrated to the United States from Cuba, urged Sessions to use his time in Miami to look around and understand what he was doing to a city that was built by immigrants.

"We beg you to stop this insanity," said Fernandez, who created a legal defense fund called Impac to represent undocumented immigrants facing deportation. "Take your foot off the neck of the people who love this country."

"Sanctuary city" is a general term used to describe about 300 cities, counties, states and local law enforcement agencies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration efforts in various ways.

The Trump administration has threatened to withhold millions of dollars in federal grants from those cities if they don't change their policies. Cities say the federal government cannot force them to carry out a federal function, and say the Trump administration is asking them to employ practices that violate federal law.

Sessions mentioned the violence in Charlottesville, Va., only briefly during his remarks. He said that he condemned the "racism, bigotry hatred, violence and those kinds of things" that were on display in Charlottesville, but did not mention white nationalists or the KKK, did not discuss the controversy over Trump's reaction to the shooting, and did not take questions.