DOWNTOWN FORT MYERS, Fla. — In a 7 to 0 vote, Fort Myers City Council passed the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between Fort Myers Police and ICE. This emergency meeting comes after a fiery and emotional city council meeting on Monday where three council members voted against the agreement.
The MOA will allow local law enforcement to be trained by ICE agents and authorize them to perform immigration enforcement.
On Monday, City council members Diana Giraldo, Darla Bonk and Terolyn Watson voted against it.
"Our vote was in concern to this because of the potential of violation of the Fourth Amendment, the racial profiling," Giraldo said Friday. "It wasn’t that we were not in agreement with the city of Fort Myers police department collaborating with ICE."
Fox 4 Senior Reporter Kaitlin Knapp explains what happened in the meeting, including claims against the City Attorney:
Fort Myers Police Deputy Chief Victor Medico answered Council's questions, but some were left up in the air, like what kind of training there will be for officers with this task force as part of the 287(g) program.
"Chances are there’s not as many ICE agents as there are Fort Myers police officers — that’s why this agreement is so important," he said.
Next to him at times was Fort Myers City Attorney Grant Alley.
When asked if the agreement is something Council has to approve, he said it's "very not clear."
"I think that you should support the agreement and the cooperation," he responded to Councilman Fred Burson when asked if the Council is voting based on legal standards or their conscious.
"That's you advice as our attorney," Burson said, to which Alley replied, "yes."
Minutes before the vote, Councilwoman Darla Bonk, who previously voted no, expressed concern over the attorney's response to the agreement. She said she sought out advice from others and was contacted by attorneys elsewhere.
"However, with the information that I have now gathered from various state agencies and legal advisors across the state of Florida, I must now express my grave concern that there was a significant dereliction on the part of my city attorney," she said.
She went on to say the silence on Monday night "placed each of us in jeopardy."
"You’re paid handsomely to protect this council and in this matter, you failed us," she said.
After the vote, Fox 4 spoke with Mayor Kevin Anderson. We asked him about the concerns of racial profiling being brought up by council members and the public.
“This is not a green light to go out there and racially profile people," he responded. "Now, let’s be realistic, you stop someone and they don’t speak English and they can’t provide documentation, you’re going to suspect maybe they’re undocumented. That’s not profiling. They did something to be stopped for to begin with.”
The meeting was packed to the brim with people, even some standing outside the doors as community members spoke for 3 hours.
"You do not have to pass this because it is wrong," one person said.
"They came over here not the right way, they should face the consequences," another person said.
Most of the people who spoke were against the agreement. There were two to three people who were in favor of the agreement.
"The MOA should be illegal," one community member said.
At one point, one woman's microphone was cut off because Mayor Kevin Anderson said she was going off topic. This was addressed to several people by the mayor multiple times.
An officer motioned to the mayor, signaling if the mayor wanted the woman removed. The mayor shook his head no.
We asked Anderson after the vote what his thoughts were able the public's reaction.
"Most of them were just not well informed on what the true issue was. They were making arguments based on emotions," he said.
All 67 Florida Sheriffs have signed on to the agreement, as well as Punta Gorda Police, Marco Island Police and Naples Police.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday that Fort Myers will enter into an agreement with ICE or he’s prepared to intervene and suspend elected officials from office.
“Now, if these local governments are not being part of the solution we’ve got a lot of tools, including suspension of office, that we can do,” DeSantis said.
