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The mayor of Fort Myers, Kevin Anderson, said he was “disappointed” and “ashamed” after a meeting of the municipal council went viral when Two members cried more vote To allow cooperation between city police officers and the application of immigration and customs of the United States (ICE).
“It was a bit embarrassing,” Anderson said Fox 35 On Wednesday. “I think that when we are sitting on the pod, there really should be no room for emotions, because when we get excited about things, we do not always make the best decisions. We need to be strong, and we need to use facts, truth and information to make our decisions and not feelings of emotion.”
The Memorandum of Agreement would allow the City Police to receive training and authority to act As ice agents stop and arrest illegal immigrants, among other functions.
He failed to approve a 3-3 vote on Monday, with a member of the Council that did not attend. The members of the Council give it Bonk and Diana Giraldo cried while expressing their opposition.
Some members of the City Council of Fort Myers cried for a memorandum of city officers who work with ice agents. (Fort Myers City website)
“It is a tumultuous day and age. And this is a day that I hate being in this seat,” said Bonk, his voice that breaks while talking about the risk of losing state and federal funds. “But my city is not on sale.”
“I can’t support this as an immigrant, the only immigrant sitting on this advice,” Giraldo said.
Anderson defended the memorandum during the meeting, emphasizing that he would not give the officers the authority to go out in search of illegal immigrants “kicking doors”, but simply the ability to arrest and process illegal immigrants to those who had been accused or condemned for a crime.
Florida’s attorney general James Uthmeier responded to the vote on Tuesday with a letter that demands that the City Council change its position or risk civil or criminal sanctions for being a sanctuary city.
“The sanctuary policies are illegal in Florida. His vote last night makes him a sanctuary city. He fixes this problem or faces the consequences,” Uthmeier wrote on X Tuesday, along with a copy of his letter.
The governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, also responded to the vote in an X Post on Tuesday.
“Thanks to the laws that we have recently promulgated in Florida, local entities must participate in the federal immigration application. Program 287 (g) enables the application of local law to help Ice. Florida will ensure that their laws are followed, and when it comes to immigration, the days of inaction end. Go themselves,” said Desantis.
Uthmeier said in a local interview that the sanctions could include the elimination of the position, which Anderson said that he should worry the opponents of the agreement in the Council.
“If I were in the place of those who voted against, I would be very worried at this time,” Anderson told Fox 35. “With regard to public service, the governor has demonstrated in recent years that he is very serious about holding people responsible for the oath of the position.”
He added that although he understood the complaints of Uthmeier, Fort Myers “is not a sanctuary city” and takes public security very seriously despite this problem.
“I was very disappointed and also ashamed by our city,” he said about the vote.
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Mayor Kevin Anderson defended the memorandum, saying that he will focus mainly on illegal immigrants who commit crimes. (Fox 35 screen capture)
But, with state and national attention on the Council, Anderson said he is “sure” that they will get a different result once an emergency meeting is held on Friday to review the memorandum again.
The meeting is expected to include an additional council member who was absent from the original meeting and could not vote.
However, he said that after having spent years in a public office, he has learned: “You never know how the advice is going to go.”
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