Are Miamians ‘prey’ to bad government? Candidates pledge to restore trust at debate
With the city’s Nov. 4 election quickly approaching, four leading candidates for Miami mayor discussed pressing issues in the city during a downtown debate Thursday night, pledging to restore trust in an era when City Hall has been plagued by lawsuits and shouting matches.
“Our municipal government has failed our residents,” former City Manager Emilio T. González said. “That’s why we’re here — all of us. We’ve let them down. We’ve let them down, and they don’t trust us. We’ve created a predator city ... and the citizens are the prey.”
Candidates Eileen Higgins, Ken Russell and Xavier L. Suarez joined González in the televised debate moderated by the Miami Herald and NBC 6, answering questions on topics ranging from housing and transit to immigration and corruption. A fifth candidate running for mayor, Commissioner Joe Carollo, met the polling threshold for the debate but opted not to come.
And while outgoing Mayor Francis Suarez didn’t attend Thursday’s debate, he took multiple hits from the candidates, who pitched themselves as a more hands-on and resident-focused alternative to the current leadership.
Russell said he would give Suarez “credit for cheerleading tech and finance to invest in Miami” but that the mayor has done a poor job at “leveraging that investment in Miami for the residents who live here now.”
Asked what letter grade he would give the outgoing mayor, Russell responded that his initial reaction was to give him an F, “but I’m going to change it to a ‘G’ for grift.”
Higgins, a Miami-Dade County commissioner, was a bit more forgiving. She gave Suarez a “C” grade.
“Really great in communications,” Higgins said. “Really, really awful when it comes to taking care of the people that actually live here, whether it’s filling potholes and certainly managing the commission and getting projects done. All of that was completely ignored, mostly, I guess, while he was in Saudi Arabia.”
Suarez has forged extensive ties to Saudi Arabia in recent years, having traveled there multiple times as part of his work for the international litigation firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, where Suarez is of counsel. Quinn Emanuel has counted the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, called the Public Investment Fund, as a client.
González, whom Suarez selected to be city manager shortly after he was first elected mayor in 2017, agreed with Higgins on giving Suarez a C.
“I think he’s done great work in certain sectors,” González said, “but I think also as mayor, he’s been absent in some very important votes that we’ve had on the commission. We should have needed his voice more, if you will, throughout this circus that we see every other week.”
READ MORE: Emilio González, the most powerful administrator in Miami’s government, resigns
Former Mayor Xavier Suarez, who is Francis’ dad, jokingly referred to his son as “the rookie” Thursday night. He said the two have different leadership styles, referring to himself as a “pothole” mayor — which was his reputation in the 1980s when he was first elected.
“I’m very different from my son in that sense,” Xavier Suarez said. “I don’t like to travel a lot to the Middle East or otherwise. ... That’s not my style. My style is, you know, I’m a hometown boy that loves to be in Miami.”
He compared his son to former Mayor Maurice Ferré, who he said was “very good at marketing Miami” but “a lot of time was absent when things got hot.”
In response to the criticisms lobbed his way Thursday night, Francis Suarez touted what he said was “a record that any city would be proud of.”
“It’s campaign season — so I’m not surprised to see a few candidates taking shots instead of taking notes,” Francis Suarez said in a statement. “While they’re busy talking, the City of Miami has delivered the highest wage growth in the country, record amount of affordable housing built and in the pipeline, record-low unemployment, lowest crime and homeless rates, as well as historic private investment. ... I’ll let the results speak for themselves — and let the candidates keep campaigning on opinions while the residents of Miami keep winning on results.”
Immigration
The candidates were also asked for their stance on the city’s decision to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE earlier this year. The move allowed the city to deputize its police officers with immigration enforcement powers, although the police chief said in the summer that, for now, just three officers would be selected and trained.
Higgins said the City Commission vote to enter the ICE agreement was “really sad and tragic” and that the city should have joined in on a lawsuit with South Miami, which sought clarity from the courts about whether cities are required to sign 287(g) agreements.
“It is a tragedy that we are talking about putting human beings in cages rather than in homes,” Higgins said.
Russell agreed, saying he was “totally against” 287(g).
“Immigrants contribute to our community,” Russell said. “They’re not a liability, and they’re not criminals. Criminals are criminals, no matter where they come from, here or there.”
González, who received an endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis last month, said his understanding was that entering a 287(g) agreement was a state requirement and that he “will do what the law says.”
“I will always advocate for our immigrant community — all of our immigrant communities,” said González, a Cuban immigrant and former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “But I will never advocate for thugs, rapists, thieves and murderers that are walking the streets in other cities that aren’t being turned over to federal authorities because they’ve decided to declare war against the Department of Homeland Security.”
Suarez, who was born in Cuba and was Miami’s first Cuban mayor, described himself as being “pro-immigration.”
“I don’t want the city police to become agents of immigration, but I do want to correspond with the federal government, share information and make sure that we do get the criminals that you were referring to,” Suarez said to Russell’s point.
Lifetime term limits
Next month, along with deciding on a new mayor and two city commissioners, Miami residents will also weigh in on a ballot question about term limits.
Russell and Higgins both said they support the proposed change, which would create lifetime term limits for elected officials in the city. But González, a former city manager, and Xavier Suarez, who was first elected 40 years ago in 1985, seemed less sure.
“If voters want to have lifetime [term limits], fine, but I’m very happy with what we have now,” González said.
Elected officials in the city are currently limited to two consecutive terms as mayor and two consecutive terms as commissioner, but they can return to office after sitting out a term. The proposed change would limit elected officials to two terms in each office for their entire lifetime, and it would apply retroactively.
Suarez said that “we already have term limitations in the city of Miami” but that he would be in favor of setting stricter term limits prospectively.
“I was elected in 1985,” Suarez said, “and then to find out, you know, 40 years later that I won’t be able to run a second term, doesn’t make much sense.”
Outside employment
The position of Miami mayor is part-time, meaning the mayor is allowed to have outside work — something three out of four of the candidates onstage Thursday said they would do if elected.
Higgins was the only contender Thursday who said she would commit to being mayor full time, “just as I am a full-time county commissioner.”
Suarez, an attorney, said he’d continue to practice law, but “mostly just corporate things that I’ll do. I won’t be doing active litigation.”
González, who is a partner at a California-based asset management company, said he would keep his current position but would not accept “any further employment.”
Russell said he plans to continue working in consulting. “But I can guarantee you I will never have a job with anybody who needs anything from City Hall, and I’ll create the disclosure forms that make sure we all know about it,” he said.
Russell, a former city commissioner, left office about a year early in late 2022 to run for Congress. Asked how he would assure voters that he’s not just running for mayor as a “stepping stone,” Russell said his goal is to be a “transitional mayor that helps welcome in people who would otherwise never have thought they could run for office.”
Russell added that elected office is “not meant to be a career.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 12:03 PM.
.jpg)