Politics
Billboards, radio spot press Miami officials to rescind ICE agreement
Billboards criticizing Mayor Eileen Higgins and the Miami Commission over the city’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are going up Monday, courtesy of a five-figure ad buy by the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC) that also includes a Spanish-language radio spot.
Two displays — one along Interstate 95 at Northwest 62nd Street, the other at Southwest 17th Avenue and 1st Street in Little Havana — press city leaders to scrap Miami’s 287(g) agreement with the federal agency.
They read: “Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins and Miami Commissioners: Protect Venezuelans and Haitians losing (Temporary Protected Status)! End Miami’s police collaboration with ICE!”
The initial buy is for $25,000, FLIC spokesperson Thomas Kennedy told Florida Politics on Friday.
The radio ad, titled “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing,” is slated to run for several weeks and aims its criticism squarely on Higgins, who said days after her December win that the city should never have signed the deal — and who has said since that she’d sign a repeal, but that Commissioners must move first.
“Miami cannot claim to be a welcoming city while its Police Department maintains an agreement that facilitates collaboration with ICE,” Kennedy said. “With Venezuelan and Haitian (Temporary Protected Status) holders facing the loss of their protections, the stakes could not be higher.”
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians who built their lives in the U.S. under temporary protected status are losing that shield, leaving them exposed to arrest and removal — a deadline FLIC contends makes the city’s ICE partnership more dangerous by the week.
Section 287(g) of federal immigration law lets police departments sign on to handle duties otherwise reserved for federal agents. Opponents say that arrangement chills crime reporting and frays whatever confidence immigrant neighborhoods still have in local officers.
Miami Commissioners approved the agreement 3-2 in June 2025 over sustained objection from residents. Higgins wasn’t in office then and has since said she’d approve a repeal — but the Mayor holds no vote on the five-member panel, and any measure needs majority support on the dais to pass.
Three have signaled they’re at least open to it. Commissioners Rolando Escalona — a Republican and the panel’s newest member — and Democrats Christine King and Damian Pardo all said as much when they took up the issue this past June, though none moved for a vote.
City Attorney George Wysong cautioned that walking away could cost Miami roughly $7.5 million in annual state dollars, according to the Miami Herald. King brushed off the funding warning, saying the city would find the money elsewhere.
City Manager James Reyes told Commissioners that two Miami officers carry 287(g) training and that the department neither profiles nor questions residents about their status, the Herald reported.
Activists who gathered outside City Hall this month countered that the paperwork alone keeps people from dialing 911.
Commissioners are in recess until September.
“Miami’s immigrant communities should not have to choose between calling the police and protecting their families from immigration consequences,” Kennedy said. “Rescinding 287(g) would send a clear message that Miami police are here to protect everyone who lives in this city.”
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