No longer ‘disappeared', Orange County ICE detainees are now public
Now, beneath a detainee's mugshot on the jail's website, a yellow banner displays 'Immigration Hold.'
The county previously had insisted its agreement with federal authorities required it to withhold the names of detainees, though other jails have shown such immigration detainers.
But families complained their loved ones were being 'disappeared' into the immigration detention system.
Mayor Jerry Demings directed corrections staff to reverse course in late June.
'Moving forward, this database will include ICE immigrant detainees,' Demings said in a statement. 'I believe this will assist family members of detainees in locating their loved ones. Relevant information for the public is now available on the jail's website.'
Such information is valuable to attorneys and family members who are trying to find inmates though the value can be fleeting. Federal immigration detainees are often transferred swiftly to facilities in Miami, the new 'Alligator Alcatraz' in the Everglades, or other facilities in Texas and New Mexico.
Once they're transferred to an ICE facility, finding them can be challenging.
'It's an incredibly good first step and we're deeply grateful to the elected officials who are finally listening to us,' said Felipe Sousa Lazaballet, the executive director of the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka. 'It's completely unacceptable to live in a community where people disappear.'
Under Orange County's Intergovernmental Service Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the county jail serves as one of a handful of facilities across the state that houses federal inmates. County commissioners are expected to further discuss the agreement at a meeting next week.
That means people arrested on immigration charges beyond the county's borders – in some cases 100 miles from Orange County – are booked and housed into the jail until they can be transferred to an ICE facility.
That agreement has come under fire as well, in part because the county is only reimbursed $88 per day an inmate is held, while it costs about $145 to detain someone.
Sousa Lazaballet said he believes the county should terminate the IGSA agreement all together.
Previously, when inmates were booked in the jail with an immigration detainer but no local charges, their name never appeared on the jail's roster.
But when a person was booked on a criminal charge or even a traffic ticket with such a detainer, they'd appear on the jail's website until the local charge was settled. After that, they'd become a federal inmate and be removed from the roster – despite often still being in the same jail.
'I'm grateful that there's more transparency now in the data for families to be able to find their people in the Orange County Jail,' said Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, who had been calling for the change.
Even still, she said, some people are being lost in the system when they're transferred from the Orange County Jail to another facility and then brought back to the local jail, she said.
'That's where we're still losing people,' she said. 'Families feel as though their loved ones are being lost.'
rygillespie@orlandosentinel.com, shudak@orlandosentinel.com
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Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
