MARCH 3, 2017 10:06 AM

Judge shoots down Miami-Dade detention policy adopted to follow Trump deportation order

BY DAVID OVALLE

Miami-Dade County — faced with threats by President Donald Trump to potentially cut off federal funding — violated the U.S. Constitution when it agreed to jail people slated for deportation, a judge ruled on Friday.

The judge’s decision was a rebuke of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s much-criticized decision to allow county jails to hold undocumented immigrants awaiting deportation by federal agents, a measure that has sparked protests and anger by many immigration advocates in South Florida.

Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch found that the policy violated the Tenth Amendment, which limits the reach of the federal government over states.

“Of course we must protect our country from the problems associated with unregulated immigration,” he wrote. “We must protect our country from a great many things; but from nothing so much as from the loss of our historic rights and liberties.”

He also wrote: “States cannot cede their reserved powers to the federal government — no, not even if they wish to do so.”

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