ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings offered blunt advice for immigration advocates Tuesday: the best recourse to address their concerns is not at the county level.
“The resolution to this issue is not in these chambers,” Mayor Demings said during a county commission meeting Tuesday. “It is somewhere else.”
Demings’ remarks followed a public comment period, during which several speakers shared their frustrations about the county’s compliance with the federal government on immigration issues.
Those speakers previewed their remarks ahead of the meeting, outside the Orange County Administration Building.
“The rage that I feel at what America is right now is very, very real,” Jen Hall said, flanked by other advocates, as well as Orange County commissioners Kelly Martinez Semrad and Nicole Wilson.
Hall and other speakers focused on their moral objections to ongoing ICE operations, but they also highlighted financial concerns.
“The question that we have is, ‘Where is our county commission on this? Where is the lawsuit?’” Hall said.
Hall was referring to the Inter-governmental Service Agreement (IGSA) which stipulates that Orange County be reimbursed for housing federal inmates. In the past, Orange County leaders have said the federal government reimburses the county $88 to house ICE inmates per day, yet the total cost to incarcerate an inmate is about $180 per day.
In July, Demings said he would direct the county to engage the federal government in an attempt to renegotiate the terms of the IGSA.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Danny Banks, the deputy county administrator of public safety, said the county has expressed its desire to the U.S. Marshals Service to renegotiate the agreement, but he did not have much of an update on the status of those negotiations.
“That is an ongoing process with us right now,” Banks said. “Unfortunately, due to the government shutdown, the U.S. Marshals Service did not have the staff in place to continue those negotiations.”
Banks added, though, that the U.S. Marshals Service does have the staff in place now and the agency contacted the county as recently as last week.
In response to advocates’ plea for a lawsuit that would be aimed at seeking clarity from the federal government, Demings suggested that option was not currently feasible.
“I don’t see the legal predicate of something that we’re trying to clarify at this point that is necessary,” Demings said.
The other agreement long under scrutiny is the 287 (g) agreement, an immigration compact with the federal government that Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier have compelled local and state law enforcements agencies to join.
The 287 (g) agreement deputizes state and local law enforcement personnel to perform ICE functions.
In Orange County, under the Warrant Service Officer model, corrections officers do not engage in enforcement, but rather are required to book inmates with ICE detainers into the Orange County Jail.
During the summer, Mayor Demings signed an addendum that requires those corrections officers to transport ICE detainees to ICE-approved facilities and/or offices. At the time, Demings claimed he signed the addendum out of fear that if he did not, DeSantis would remove Demings and the commissioners from office.
“I signed the damn thing,” Demings said in a press conference at the time.
During the commission meeting Tuesday, Demings said that corrections officers have not yet been asked to transport ICE inmates.
As of Tuesday, the Orange County Jail was housing about 250 inmates who have ICE holds, according to Banks. More than half of those inmates, he said, have underlying state and/or local charges. He said there are 120 inmates, though, who are inside the jail solely on an ICE detainer with no underlying charges.
In an email recently obtained by News 6, Louis Quinones Jr., the chief of corrections, wrote to Mayor Demings and commissioners, informing them that in November, the monthly ICE population increased across all categories compared to the previous month.
“This rise corresponds directly with the higher volume of ICE bookings,” Quinones wrote. “November recorded one of the highest numbers of ICE bookings in the past year across all categories.”