Bolstered by a show of public support, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday that voices opposition to the conversion of any industrial warehouse in Orange County into a federal immigrant detention center.
The resolution comes in response to reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning to purchase an industrial warehouse near Lake Nona to convert into a detention facility, as part of a broader, multibillion-dollar effort that’s playing out nationwide.
Community members in blue and deep-red communities alike have responded to such reports with frustration, the Washington Post reported, citing concerns such as lack of transparency, environmental impacts, and a worry that the reported human rights violations occurring in ICE detention centers elsewhere will come to their communities next.
“Our responsibility is to protect the health, safety and well-being of our residents, preserve the integrity of our local land use process and ensure that major decisions affecting our community are not made without transparency, coordination or respect for local government,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Tuesday.
“Orange County is committed to public safety, to the rule of law and to treating every person with dignity, and this resolution makes clear that any proposal of this nature is incompatible with our communities, values and priorities.”
Demings is a Democratic mayor and former sheriff in a ruby-red state with some of the harshest immigration policies in the country. He’s also on his way out of the county mayor’s office, and is in the running for Florida governor this year. The resolution approved by the county commission Tuesday, however, was championed by District 1 county commissioner Nicole Wilson, also a Democrat on the technically nonpartisan board.
She’d previously expressed concerns about the potential environmental issues associated with converting an industrial warehouse into a detention facility, as well as human rights issues, and the message that a detention facility would send to tourists. As the home of Disney World and other major tourist attractions, the county welcomes millions of international visitors each year.
“Orange County is both a residential community and a globally recognized visitor destination and the placement of a detention and processing facility would strain limited water, sewer and municipal services while harming neighborhood quality of life and the County’s international visitor experience and reputation,” Wilson’s resolution reads. “Orange County expressly opposes the placement of any detainee processing facility within Orange County and finds the County to be an unsuitable location for such a facility.”
The resolution itself is symbolic, meaning it won’t stop federal officials from ignoring commissioners’ request to scrap their plans should they wish to carry them out. A 439,945-square-foot industrial warehouse at 8660 Transport Drive was reportedly toured by federal officials in January, including an ICE official.
It’s one of nearly two dozen warehouses that are being eyed nationwide as part of the Trump administration’s plan to more than double its detention capacity in order to more efficiently carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“The stress, fear, and constant uncertainty about whether families will be safe tomorrow are weighing heavily on our community,” Meilyn Santana, chief of staff for the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka, told county leaders during public comment Tuesday, in support of the resolution. “Parents are afraid, children are anxious, and entire families are living with a level of fear that no community should have to endure.”
Therese O’Hara, a resident of Ocoee, said the very concept of a detention facility in Orange County brings to mind the face of her grandmother, a Trinidadian immigrant who obtained U.S. citizenship through a legal pathway that, O’Hara says, “[has] been replaced by black-box warehouses that prioritize deportation over due process.”
“Building a modern-day ‘Dachau Disney’ in a region defined by family and magic will not bring prosperity — it will bring a permanent stain to our soul,” she said. “We cannot market ourselves as a global destination for joy while operating an engine of human suffering next door.”
“Building a modern-day Dachau Disney in a region defined by family and magic will not bring prosperity — it will bring a permanent stain to our soul”
Local resident Therese O’Hara
Local government leaders in Florida are restricted from showing much resistance to ICE under state statutes, which state that municipalities must provide “best efforts” to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.
City and county attorneys have also cited a clause of the U.S. Constitution as a barrier to limiting or regulating any activity by the federal government in its action to enforce federal immigration law. “We are duty bound to follow the law, even when we don’t approve of it,” Orlando city attorney Mayanne Downs told city leaders.
The warehouse eyed by ICE in Orlando is owned by Beachline Logistics Center LLC, operated by the Atlanta-based TPA Group. A previous sales listing for the massive warehouse, marketed by HLI Partners, is no longer active or being advertised.
Congressman Maxwell Frost, a progressive Democrat from Orlando, voiced support for Wilson’s resolution during the county board meeting Tuesday, stating that the idea of a detention facility coming to the county “is deeply troubling and raises serious concerns.”
Frost and fellow Democratic Congressman Darren Soto of Kissimmee wrote a letter to DHS officials in early February, urging them to drop their plans. “Given the deplorable conditions at other ICE facilities, we find it increasingly difficult to believe that this facility would do more than propagate suffering for the people of Central Florida,” the letter states. “The crackdown on immigration has been a costly effort for our state that has only served to destabilize our communities and cause egregious human rights violations.”
At least 32 people died in ICE custody last year, according to the Guardian — the highest annual death toll in 20 years. Immigration enforcement officials have also faced scrutiny over the killings of U.S. citizens, the detention of small children, and significantly scaled-down training for new recruits to ICE amid a show of violent enforcement tactics.
While several members of the public thanked county leaders on Tuesday for moving forward with the resolution, others urged them to go further. For months, advocates with the locally organized Immigrants Are Welcome Here coalition have urged Orange County commissioners to file a lawsuit to seek clarification on the “best efforts” they must demonstrate under state law to aid ICE.
They’ve also asked for the county to end its decades-old intergovernmental services agreement with ICE, amended last year, which allows federal agents to temporarily detain people on federal immigration charges in the Orange County Jail. Orange County taxpayers are currently bearing much of the cost of these detentions, as the county continues their efforts to negotiate a higher reimbursement rate with the federal government.
“We are hopeful that today also becomes a symbol of new and a new trajectory that you will say no to ICE detentions, period,” said Ericka Gomez Tejeda, an organizer with the Hope Community Center.
Orange County leaders have spent hours debating their cooperation with ICE and their legal obligations to federal immigration authorities. They’ve been extra cautious, however, following threats from Florida’s attorney general, who last year threatened to remove them from office over their decision to reject what they believed to be a voluntary amendment to their agreement with ICE.
Demings, in response, reversed course, telling reporters he decided to sign the amendment “under duress.”
“I can’t let our entire Board of County Commissioners and myself be removed from office,” Demings said at the time. “I did not want to be in a position where the governor will have the opportunity to insert his minions in the roles to lead this county.”
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