ORLANDO, Fla. – An Orange County leader says she got a call from a concerned resident who needed help finding her husband.
Commissioner Nicole Wilson said the woman was left alone with her child.
Wilson said she was unable to track this man down as well, and the only solution she could offer this resident was a flight back to her home, Chile.
It turned out, the man had an interaction with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and was detained.
Wilson mentioned that families are currently experiencing separation due to potential permit issues. In one case, a work permit matter arose, where an individual believed their work permit was valid, but an ICE agent disagreed with this belief.
This situation unfolded about a month after Orange County leaders approved an agreement with ICE. This agreement permits county corrections officers to participate in immigration enforcement activities.
Upon signing the agreement on March 25, the board made a request for a forthcoming work session to address concerns raised by corrections staff regarding their collaboration with ICE. The work session was subsequently held on Tuesday as scheduled.
Wilson was unable to find the resident’s husband due to federal law, said Orange County Corrections Chief Louis Quinones.
He said if a person is being held at the jail on an ICE detainer but does not have any local charges, federal law prohibits jail staff from sharing information about that person.
Quinones also shared that 36 people being held in Orange County’s jail have no local charges, and they are only there because an ICE agent (or Florida Highway Patrol) brought them there on a detainer, he said.
“Yesterday alone, they brought in 20 inmates that had no local charges,” Quinones said on Tuesday. “And we are projecting to get 20 in the next five days.”
Quinones said 180 inmates in custody, as well, were brought in on local charges, but also held warrants from ICE.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said this is a sign that ICE is very active here in Central Florida. He also asked Quinones if the number of inmates in custody is “normal” for the facility.
“I can tell you that it has increased; we were speaking about that earlier,” Quinones said. “This is the highest we have seen in quite some time.”
Syracuse University released a report on April 14 providing ICE detainer data from Trump’s first 90 days in office in his second term (Jan. 20 — Feb.17), which shows Florida ranks No. 3 in the U.S. for ICE detainers issued, with 1,891.
However, Florida ranks No.1 for the number of people ICE has taken into custody, with 607, according to the report.
Orlando was named in the report as well, ranked No. 13 in the top 25 cities in the U.S. during that same period for issued ICE detainers, 162. Thirty-eight, or 23%, of those wanted were taken into custody, per the report.
To add on, the same report shows that across the U.S., 72% of people who were issued a detainer from ICE did not have any criminal history.
Out of nearly 18,000 detainers, 65 held convicted murder charges.
These numbers come at a time when the Trump Administration is considering plans to build private detention centers across the U.S. to hold thousands of migrants, according to previous reports.
The acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Todd Lyons, spoke at a border security conference in Phoenix earlier this month, relaying these plans. He said the agency needs “to get better at treating this like a business” and suggested the nation’s deportation system could function ”like Amazon, trying to get your product delivered in 24 hours,” according to previous reports.
“So, trying to figure out how to do that with human beings and trying to get them pretty much all over the globe is really something for us,” Lyons said.
In Orange County, leaders asked for another update from Quinones in the future, which the mayor has agreed to do.
“At some point, I think it’s obvious that we will bring corrections back and give the board an update in what we are actually seeing and experiencing in our jails,” Demings said.
If you or your loved one is detained by ICE, the National Immigrant Justice Center has a guide for knowing your rights. Click HERE for those details.
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