US President Donald Trump’s immigration orders meddle with cities: Mayors

Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, left, talks to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, right, as they tour where the city has raised streets and installed pumps to combat rising tides, Thursday, June 23, 2017, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Photo by AP)

Over 250 mayors have warned US President Donald Trump that toughening immigration enforcement meddles with American cities' affairs.

The mayors were congregating at the US Conference of Mayors in Miami Beach on Saturday to review resolutions that would strongly oppose Trump's clampdown on undocumented immigrants.

In January, Trump ordered to cut funding to jurisdictions that somewhat deny cooperation with federal immigration agents. However, most cities defied the order, and a federal judge temporarily blocked it in April.

He signed another executive order in March which again was blocked by another federal judge.

This file photo taken on January 23, 2017 shows US President Donald Trump signing an executive order. (Photo by AFP)

In April, the US Department of Justice threatened to clamp down on so-called “sanctuary cities,” saying it would cut off their funding if they refused to hand over undocumented immigrants suspected of crime.

On Saturday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, "Some of us are proud to be places of sanctuary, to protect immigrants, but this idea that we're in violation of something, I think is a big charade.”

Garcetti said he wants immigration officials to conduct enforcement in a "lawful, constitutional, court-ordered way."

"Police officers in Los Angeles do 20,000 to 30,000 requests for warrants from judges every year in the middle of the night when the judges are probably in their pajamas,” he said. “The idea that ICE can't do the same thing seems ridiculous.”

Mayors from big cities say they are worried that the increased enforcement will deter immigrant communities from reporting crimes or cooperating as witnesses.

In March, the police chief of Los Angeles, Charlie Beck, said there had been a decrease in reports of sexual assaults and domestic violence by Latinos.

US Border Patrol agents detain two undocumented immigrants after capturing them near the US-Mexico border on March 15, 2017 near McAllen, Texas. (Photo by AFP)

Kent Guinn, mayor of Ocala, Florida, said Saturday that although he was against offering a pathway to citizenship to the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants, most of them he sees are "good."

"I don't think people realize there are some bad people that are here that need to leave," Guinn said, referring to the 2015 shooting death of a San Francisco woman by an undocumented immigrant. "But the ones that we encounter on a day-to-day basis, they're very hard-working individuals that do the things that they need to do and participate in the economy."

The Republican Mayor of Carmel, Indiana, Jim Brainard, also opposes Trump's immigration views.

He said that "punishing cities makes no sense," adding, everyone who has come to this country, whether legally or illegally, should “have a pathway to legalization.”

Trump has pledged to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and keep Latin American immigrants from illegally entering the country by making a wall on the border with Mexico.