death of Renee Good,<\/a> an activist killed during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Local faith leaders say her death prompted renewed scrutiny of partnerships between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies.<\/p>\n\u201cIn the light of the recent violence that\u2019s happened in Minneapolis and Portland, I think it\u2019s important for our police department, our chief, our mayor, to take a look at our agreement with ICE,\u201d Rev. Andy Oliver said.<\/p>\n
Rev. Oliver published an open letter Friday calling on city leaders and St. Pete police to end their agreement with ICE, arguing the partnership does not reflect the city\u2019s values.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere in St. Pete, we don\u2019t share the same values as ICE, and it\u2019s time to end that agreement,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n
The vigil is being hosted by Rev. Ben Atherton-Zeman, who said the gathering is intended to honor Good while addressing broader moral concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us as a faith community this is not a political issue, this is a moral issue,\u201d Rev. Atherton-Zeman said. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to bring people together to heal from the trauma \u2014 not just to her family but to the nation \u2014 but also to organize so our land follows the principles of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway disputes the characterization of the department\u2019s role.<\/p>\n
In a written statement, Holloway said, “To clarify, our department is not part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). We assist ICE only when, during the course of a lawful encounter, an individual is identified as a suspect or subject in a criminal investigation. If it is determined that the individual has an active warrant, we are legally obligated to execute that warrant, whether it\u2019s ICE-related or not, fairly and consistently. We are not seeking, nor do we receive, funding to support ICE operations.<\/p>\n
As of today, none of our officers has received training under the 287(g) program; therefore, none has been deputized.”<\/p>\n
Holloway has also previously said immigration enforcement is not the department\u2019s focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not concerned about somebody walking down the street \u2014 their immigration status, whether they\u2019re documented or not, that\u2019s not our job. We\u2019re not going to do that,\u201d Holloway said in a March interview.<\/p>\n
Faith leaders say Friday night’s vigil will center voices from the immigrant community while urging city leaders to take a public stance on the issue.<\/p>\n
The mayor and St. Petersburg City Council members were contacted for comment on the open letter, but had not responded as of this publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A vigil set for Friday night in St. Petersburg is honoring Renee Good while reigniting debate over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-112369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}