New ICE pact could have Florida jail staff driving immigrants to Alligator Alcatraz
'I'm gonna fight it,' said commissioner Nicole Wilson, who cast one of the board's two no votes March 26 against the original Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA) with ICE to hold agency detainees from around Florida at the county jail.
To date, jail staff has not been enlisted to move detainees, corrections spokesperson Tracy Zampaglione said.
'Orange County Corrections does not transport inmates, ICE does,' she said in an email. 'Orange County Corrections Department has not — nor do we transport inmates released to ICE custody.'
But the one-page addendum on the commission's Tuesday agenda could change that.
If adopted by the board, the codicil would authorize county correctional officers trained in ICE procedures to transport immigration detainees at the immigration agency's request. A Florida law passed earlier this year requires all jails in the state to cooperate with ICE.
Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad, the other no vote on the first ICE pact, also opposed adding to jail staff's work load.
'I don't agree with requiring our correction officers to do more work than what they're paid for and to do work they may not agree with or to do the bidding of a state government that's over-reaching,' she said Wednesday. 'We have immense public pressure to do what is right.'
It is not known how many other counties in Florida or elsewhere are facing similar requests. The Miami Herald reported Wednesday that Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava quietly signed a similar updated agreement with ICE in June, unbeknownst to community members.
That agreement appears identical to the one being considered in Orange County, giving any correctional staff trained through the previous agreement the ability to transport detainees upon ICE's request.
But Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings, who signed the original agreement, so far has declined to sign the addendum, according to a memo to the county commission.
The Orlando Sentinel asked Demings' spokesperson for comment but had not received a response by late Wednesday afternoon.
Under Orange County's existing IGSA, the county jail serves as one of a handful of facilities across the state that houses federal inmates.
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 in part because the county is only reimbursed $88 per day an inmate is held, while it costs about $145 to detain someone. The new transport clause adds a deeper wrinkle.
Commissioner Wilson objected particularly to the federal government's failure to fully reimburse the county for the cost of holding ICE detainees.
'I don't understand why there's this expectation to everyone that we just goose-step right in line,' she said.
She said she was concerned the county would be complicit in shipping detainees swiftly without due process to 'what are probably very inhumane conditions' at places like Alligator Alcatraz, the hastily erected detention compound for ICE detainees in the Everglades.
'And we don't know what happens to them after that,' she said.
Approving the amended agreement with ICE would be a huge disservice to the county's immigrant population, Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, executive director of Apopka's Hope CommUnity Center, said.
'We are a community that was built on the vitality of immigrants and immigration,' he said. 'To see our county officials turn their backs to our community values [and] to align themselves with a deportation machine, it is not only a step in the wrong direction, it's against what we stand for as a community.'
A law passed during the state legislature's special session in February requires Florida jails to cooperate with ICE, but Sousa-Lazaballet argued it does not force the county to accept the agency's new terms.
Other community leaders aren't so confident.
Jose Rodriguez, an Orlando Episcopalian priest, said commissioners are under pressure and face possible removal from office if they don't cooperate with state and federal authorities.
'I have elected these commissioners, I've elected to represent me and represent my voice.' Rodriguez said. 'However, if they represent the wrong voice, they'll get removed from office.'
He cited previous threats from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to remove city council members and commissioners from their appointed roles if they don't comply with ICE.
Most recently, Uthmeier posted a letter to X where he said he would remove Key West city commissioners from office if they didn't reinstate their voided agreement with ICE. Commissioners voted to re-implement the agreement on Tuesday.
Instead, Rodriguez calls on Orange County's commissioners to go down 'kicking and screaming,' by letting their community know what they really think of the agreement — even if ultimately they must approve it.
'I think the most powerful thing that each commissioner could do is speak their mind about how they're being forced — if they feel like they're being forced,' he said. 'They better put an asterisk on that.'
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