South Miami Mayor Javier Fernández is urging cities like Orlando to reconsider their agreements with the U.S. federal immigration enforcement agency, based in part on admissions made by state attorneys in court last month. South Miami so far is the only city in Florida to go to court to challenge their obligations to cooperate with ICE.
“My reason for joining today is to frankly highlight for my fellow mayors and local cities the fact that they are under no obligation to sign these agreements,” Fernández shared during a press conference last week, referring to what are known as 287(g) agreements. According to Fernández and lawyer Alana Greer of the Community Justice Project, attorneys for the state recently admitted to a judge overseeing a lawsuit filed by the city that Florida cities are not legally required to sign 287(g)s under state law.
Fernandez said resistance from city officials to enter into these agreements, particularly under “duress” by state or federal officials, “is validated, not just because of the political merits, the moral merits of not joining in this effort to needlessly target the most vulnerable, in our community, but because it’s what the law says.”
Fernández, a Democrat whose office is officially nonpartisan, said this admission by state attorneys in court “confirms the fact that what we have all been experiencing in recent months is a series of threats being lobbied at local jurisdictions to try to force us to adopt a position that is aspirational on the part of the governor, to have the law read as he would like it to read.”
The city of South Miami filed a lawsuit against the state in March, aiming to clarify whether cities in Florida are legally obligated to enter into 287(g) agreements. Counties that operate jails, including Orange, are explicitly required to under state law, but there is no federal or state law requiring this of cities.
“I want to encourage my local colleagues at the local level to hold steady, to await an outcome on this matter, and hopefully in the future, be able to act free of any duress and come to a decision as to whether or not they should participate in these efforts of their own accord,” Fernández added.
According to federal data, Florida leads the nation in municipal 287(g) agreements. All 67 of Florida’s county sheriffs departments have signed on to ICE agreements, as of February, in addition to dozens of city and university police departments. Students at the University of Central Florida in Orlando — the state’s largest public university by enrollment — protested their university’s cooperation with ICE last week, similarly arguing that their university is not required to enter into a 287(g) agreement under state or federal law.
“UCF admin has chosen to side with the Trump administration’s attacks on students rather than work with us to stand up and fight back against them,” reads an Instagram post from the UCF Students for a Democratic Society, which organized a rally on campus last week with the UCF chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America. Students marched with signs that said, “Fuck ICE,” “No I.C.E. on Campus” and “Education not Deportation.”
Despite what state law does (or does not) say, some city leaders, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, have faced threats of removal from office for resistance. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, for instance, warned Dyer back in April not to enforce a “sanctuary policy” the city established in 2018 — saying that failure to comply could result in penalties including removal from office. The city resolution, first established in 2018, aimed to stop police from asking “law-abiding” people about their immigration status.
Dyer briefly held his ground in his spat with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ newly appointed AG this spring, arguing the policy was lawful, before bending the knee just a day later.
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“Neither I nor the Orlando Police Department have any intention of violating federal or state law, and as you know, we have signed the Memorandum of Agreement 287(g) Task Force Model with ICE, an executed copy of which is attached,” Dyer wrote in a letter to Uthmeier, responding to Uthmeier’s own threatening letter posted to social media. “Our OPD officers are in the process of being trained by ICE to provide assistance at its direction. We assure you we will continue to use our best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law, as well as state law.”
Federal data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which houses ICE — shows that a number of cities in Central Florida beyond Orlando, including Winter Garden, Ocoee, Sanford, Windermere, Longwood and others, have similarly signed onto “task force model” 287(g) agreements with ICE. These essentially give city law enforcement officers the authority to perform certain ICE agent functions (i.e., cosplay as ICE agents).
Orlando Weekly reached out to the city of Orlando to ask if the city would reconsider its 287(g) agreement with ICE, in light of Fernandez’s call to action. “It is our understanding that at this time a ruling has not been reached,” a city spokesperson told us, referencing the city of South Miami’s lawsuit. “As previously stated, neither the Mayor nor the Orlando Police Department has any intention of violating federal or state law. We also want to reiterate that Orlando has always been, and will continue to be, a welcoming community for all who choose to call it home. The City will continue to closely monitor court proceedings as well as any related state and federal legislation.”
According to the Florida Phoenix, activists in the Tampa Bay region are also organizing to urge their local police departments to nix their agreements with ICE.
“Did anyone know that Pinellas County schools signed a 287(g) agreement for a second?” asked one activist, affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, addressing a crowd at a recent rally. “Because ICE shouldn’t be in schools. But you know what happened right after? There was a huge public outcry, right? Parents came out. Teachers came out. Community members who don’t even have kids came out to fight against this and to oppose it. And you know what they did? And you won’t hear DeSantis talk about this. They voided that agreement.”
DeSantis and Uthmeier — the governor’s former chief of staff, appointed to the role of AG earlier this year to fill a vacancy — have further kicked up their efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants, empowered by the similarly energized attitude of the Trump administration.
DeSantis, who ran a failed campaign for U.S. President last year against Trump, has taken a hard line on immigration in recent years, OK’ing some of the harshest enforcement policies in the nation. Uthmeier, a former campaign staffer during Trump’s first run for office in 2016, is currently running to retain his post as state Attorney General, and has made a point of highlighting extreme cases of crimes allegedly committed by undocumented people without mentioning that immigrants — undocumented or not — have been found through research to commit fewer crimes than U.S.-born people.
“[Former president] Joe Biden opened our borders, sanctuary states offered incentives for illegal immigration, and they put Americans at risk,” Uthmeier said in a recent press release, announcing the arrest of an undocumented man accused of killing three people in a car accident. “The majority of this group of criminal aliens were let into the country under the Biden administration, and the effects are widespread. Accountability is coming for these sanctuary policies putting Floridians at risk,” he added.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings briefly stood up to Uthmeier when the county initially rejected a voluntary agreement to have local jail staff transport ICE detainees to other detention facilities. Demings (and the Orange County corrections chief) worried the agreement with stretch county jail staff too thin, placing the health, safety and oversight of those detained in the local jail at risk. After similarly facing a threat of removal from office from Uthmeier, however, the Orange County board of commissioners that includes Demings signed onto the agreement, with just two commissioners (Nicole Wilson and Kelly Semrad) dissenting.
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