Latest news with #ChristiFraga
Bloomberg
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Home to Trump Golf Resort Faces Growing Fear Amid Deportation Policy Changes
By and Joe Lovinger Save Christi Fraga, the mayor of Doral, Florida, is being bombarded with questions about US immigration rules she doesn't know how to answer. Her city, which is home to the Trump National Doral Golf Resort, has a large population of Venezuelan immigrants who hold Temporary Protected Status — and businesses that employ them. After the Trump administration scored a legal victory in its efforts to end the TPS program, the community, known to many as 'Doralzuela,' has been in a state of fear and uncertainty.
Miami Herald
07-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Carnival cruise company plans to move its Miami-Dade headquarters
Real Estate News Carnival cruise company plans to move its Miami-Dade headquarters A view of the operations center at Carnival headquarters in Doral at 3655 NW 87th Ave. Miami Herald File Carnival Corp. is heading to a new port in South Florida. The cruise ship company announced this week it plans to move its corporate headquarters from Doral to a growing business district near Miami International Airport. 'We don't want to see them go,' Doral Mayor Christi Fraga said. 'Our city is nostalgic for them.' Fraga said she's disappointed with the decision, but also confident that another company will express interest in the Carnival campus at Northwest 87th Avenue and 36th Street. 'Everyone recognizes them around here,' said Fraga, who noted that Carnival, founded by the Arison family, was one of the earliest and largest companies to move to Doral in the 1980s. Micky Arison, son of Carnival founder Ted Arison, owns the Miami Heat basketball team. New headquarters for Carnival The cruise giant announced on May 5 that it had purchased property in the Waterford Business District, just south of the airport, as the future site of the company's new 'state-of-the-art global headquarters development.' On what's now vacant land, Carnival will build a multi-building campus that will initially accommodate over 2,000 workers. The company will move most of its onshore employees there from other business units, too. The campus is expected to be completed in 2028 and become Carnival's new global headquarters and its main North America office. Carnival will join other multinational companies based in the area, including Subway and Burger King. It will 'for the first time unite in a single location most of its North America shoreside team members from across the corporation and its cruise line operating units,' the company said in a statement. Employees based at the Doral headquarters will continue to work there until the move. Carnival paid $26.9 million for a 15-acre parcel on the northeast corner of Northwest Seventh Street and 65th Avenue, according to Blanca Commercial Real Estate, leasing agent for the Waterford Business District and advisor on the deal. The cruise company is 'planning to build a larger campus than what they have in Doral,' Tere Blanca, CEO of Blanca Commercial Real Estate, told the Miami Herald. That follows more remote workers returning to the office after the COVID pandemic — 'the trend is to be more in the office than not,' Blanca said. A change of plans for Carnival Runners pass the Carat PortMiami during Life Time Miami Marathon on Sunday, January 28, 2024 in Miami, Florida. Carl Juste cjuste@ Carnival's move seems to be a reversal from its plans when the company put its Doral office up for sale over a year ago. At the time, Carnival was looking for a smaller space. 'We understand this was a downsizing,' Mayor Fraga said, 'because the building was pretty empty after COVID.' Bloomberg reported last year that Carnival was looking to sell the Doral headquarters, which is 470,000 square feet, and move to a 300,000-square-feet building. While the Doral office is on 18 acres and the land at the Waterford Business District is on 15 acres, the proposed new global headquarters when finished will initially take up 600,000 to 700,000 square feet, Carnival's statement said. Fraga and Blanca are confident Carnival will eventually find a buyer for the Doral building. 'It's a phenomenal site for development,' Blanca said. 'Doral has a very established business district.' Carnival's plans are a boost for the growing Waterford Business District, already home to Subway, Verizon and Assurant. Nuveen Real Estate and PIMCO Real Estate own the district and worked on the deal with Carnival. Waterford 'is experiencing tremendous momentum in terms of activity,' said Blanca, who expects more deals this year. Carnival's new campus will be designed from scratch. When finished, it will include open collaboration zones, individual workplaces and 'ample meeting rooms.' One thing that won't change: A global headquarters building isn't the same as where a company is registered. Carnival is incorporated in Panama. 'We are primarily foreign corporations engaged in the business of operating cruise ships in international transportation,' the company wrote in its 2024 annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Because of that and a part of the Internal Revenue Service Code, 'substantially all of Carnival's Corporation's income is exempt from U.S. federal income and branch profit taxes,' the company wrote. Carnival does pay property tax, however. In 2024, the company paid a $1.1 million tax bill on the Doral headquarters, according to Miami-Dade County property records. This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 11:21 AM. VS Vinod Sreeharsha Miami Herald Email this person Vinod Sreeharsha covers tourism trends in South Florida for the Miami Herald.
Miami Herald
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
As it joins forces with ICE, Doral risks betraying its Venezuelan roots
Let's just say it out loud: Doral, a largely Hispanic city, is about to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement round up Venezuelans and other migrants facing deportation. Mayor Christi Fraga can describe it in a less menacing way, but that's the reality in a nutshell. Yes, the same Doral that this year hosted protests against the Trump administration stripping Venezuelans of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The same 'Doralzuela' where Venezuelans make up more than a third of the population. The same Doral that loves to call itself a 'city of immigrants.' Last week, the Doral City Council authorized a partnership between its police department and ICE through a program known as 287(g), aligning with President Donald Trump's mass deportation machine. It's a move that brings the largest Venezuelan-American city in the country into a deeply controversial federal initiative — and one we suspect the city will come to regret. Doral joins Coral Gables, Hialeah, West Miami and Miami Springs as the latest Miami-Dade municipalities to align with the state's and Trump's immigration agenda. This agreement gives Doral police officers the authority to question, detain and process individuals based on immigration status. Until now, ICE picked up undocumented individuals primarily at the county jail. Under 287(g), Doral police can now fast-track people into deportation proceedings. Let's not kid ourselves: this program opens the door to racial profiling and the targeting of the very residents Doral claims to support and protect. The irony is glaring. This is not a legal requirement. It's not essential to public safety. It's a choice by Doral — driven by political pressure from Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General James Uthmeier, and, implicitly, Trump. The city is home to one of Trump's highest-profile properties — the Trump National Doral Golf Resort. So, yes, it's hard not to see this move as political theater. The Trump family has weighed in on Doral's controversial issues, including efforts to rebuild a waste incinerator in the city. Eric Trump even contacted county leaders to halt the plans. This decision also feels like a betrayal. Venezuelans have felt plenty of that lately. Many supported Trump, hoping he would back their fight against Nicolás Maduro. Instead, he made prisoner-swap deals with the dictator and sought to end legal status for Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. Most of these protections came under the Biden administration, and Trump is trying to reverse them. He has also smeared Venezuelan exiles, implying they are criminals, even linking them to the Tren de Aragua, a notorious gang. The Trump administration removed work permits and deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. Some were even flown to a mega-prison in El Salvador under wartime powers — without due process. And now, Doral is volunteering to help. City officials told the Miami Herald the partnership isn't about criminalizing immigrants. But the facts suggest otherwise. The 287(g) program was reduced under the Obama administration because of civil rights violations and racial profiling. Trump revived it. And now, Doral is handing that same flawed tool to its police. Yes, Doral supported the Venezuelan Adjustment Act, which aims to offer permanent legal status to Venezuelan nationals. And yes, Councilman Rafael Pineyro — a Venezuelan-American — recently urged Trump to protect law-abiding Venezuelans. But that same council just voted to detain them. Fraga called the decision 'morally challenging.' She says Doral police won't be stopping people to ask about their immigration status — only those who run into trouble with the law. But let's be clear: Florida law only requires counties to cooperate with ICE — not cities. Doral didn't have to do this. It chose to — likely under pressure. This is about politics, and the consequences will be real. People may stop calling 911. They'll fear reporting crimes or showing up in court. Trust between the police and residents — especially undocumented individuals or those who lost TPS — will fray. The damage won't stop with those targeted. It will ripple across the entire community. Doral may come close to forfeiting the right to proudly call itself a city of immigrants. Click here to send the letter.
