Diana Giraldo

Fort Myers City Council will hold an Emergency Meeting today to set forth the terms and conditions pursuant to selected Fort Myers Police Department personnel who will be nominated, trained, and therefore be approved by ICE to perform certain functions of an immigration officer under the direction and supervision of ICE within the Fort Myers Police Department’s jurisdiction.

This meeting follows the city receiving a letter from James Uthmeier, Attorney General State of Florida on March 18 that Council’s non approval of FMPD’s 287(g) agreement with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement at its meeting on March 17 constituted a serious and direct violation of Florida Law.

Diana Giraldo, Ward 2 council member, was one of three dissenting votes on March 17.

She has issued the following statement in advance of the meeting:

“I want to set the record straight about the vote we took on Monday. Press accounts and comments from others in government were inaccurate. They left the impression that I was objecting to the City cooperating with ICE. That’s not true.

The vote on Monday was not about whether or not the City of Fort Myers Police Department is going to collaborate with ICE and assist them in their efforts to enforce immigration laws. Our Police Department already has an agreement in place with ICE to cooperate with them in their enforcement efforts in the City of Ft. Myers.

I know this because I visited with our Chief of Police about this matter a few weeks ago and he explained their cooperation to me.

I support having our Police Department assist ICE in its enforcement efforts.

The vote on Monday was not about whether or not our City would cooperate with ICE. That agreement is already in place. Instead, the vote on Monday was about training for some officers who will work directly with ICE.

While I’m in favor of enforcing our laws, I am also in favor of following the 4th Amendment to our Constitution which has protections against unlawful searches and seizures.

As a U. S. citizen who was once an immigrant here, I’m keenly aware of how easy it is for busy law enforcement people to mistake U. S. citizens for immigrants who may be in violation of the law.

I want to ensure that the training for these officers includes the training to help us avoid racial or ethnic profiling when our officers are out trying to enforce our laws.

Today we are going to discuss the training agreement for our officers with ICE and I hope that the Department can provide training to our officers to ensure that racial profiling does not occur and that we are not violating the 4th Amendment of American citizens of different backgrounds and ethnicities.

And I hope that our City will try to provide greater transparency, accountability and openness about what we are doing in this community to assist in the enforcement of our immigration laws.

Lastly, City Council Members were not informed by City Staff or the City Attorney about the state law that had been recently passed by the Legislature requiring compliance by all local governments.

As important as this subject matter was, we as Council Members, did not receive details and guidance to indicate the possible violation of the law.

We are not lawyers. It is the City Attorney’s job to bring to our attention if a law is implicated in what we are being asked to approve not to be in violation of such law.

I certainly had no idea that my concerns over our training agreement would be perceived as knowingly violating the law, because I knew nothing about the law recently passed by the Legislature earlier this year.

Ft. Myers has been collaborating with ICE.

I am a law abiding citizen. I do not break the law and have never intended to break the law.

To have anyone accuse us of wanting to be a ‘sanctuary city’ does not represent the facts.

I’m asking the media to please report the facts as the facts have not been reported correctly since Monday.”

Diana Giraldo, Ward 2 Councilmember, City of Fort Myers