As the federal government mines local jails for undocumented people, immigrants increasingly face the reality that paying a bond does not guarantee their freedom.
Instead of walking free, many who post bail are held beyond their scheduled release and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for possible deportation — leaving families out hundreds of dollars, attorneys unable to reach their clients and local courts with unresolved cases.
Attorneys and advocates have long raised questions about the legality of the controversial practice.
During U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, ICE has increasingly relied on Florida jails to arrest undocumented immigrants, according to a Suncoast Searchlight investigation published earlier this month. That report detailed the case of a Manatee County resident who was turned over to ICE shortly after his wife paid his bonds on two misdemeanor charges stemming from an alleged traffic violation. His deportation left the local case unresolved, and the family remains in legal limbo.
What happened to him reflects a broader pattern. As ICE ramps up its use of local jails, attorneys describe both new obstacles in representing clients and a broader erosion of due process.
“The tragedy is that they’re essentially gone in a week or two,” said Kevin Gregg, an attorney with Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, a Florida-based firm specializing in immigration law. “And the entire impetus is a low level offense for which they might not even be guilty.”
ALSO READ: She paid his bond. ICE took him. Bradenton family’s saga shows how Florida jails fuel deportations
How ICE detainers exploit the bail system
The issue begins with how ICE exploits the bail system.
Under normal circumstances, someone jailed on a minor charge can pay their bond and go home, promising to return for their court date. If they fail to appear, a judge issues a bench warrant authorizing law enforcement to arrest them.
But when ICE steps in, the process changes. If the agency identifies someone in jail it deems “removable,” it flags that person with a “hold” or “detainer” — a request to local authorities to keep that person locked up for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release. Instead of walking free, the individual may be handed to ICE and taken into federal custody, while the local authorities keep their bond money — a practice that has outraged immigrants’ advocates.
“Counties are using bail money to profit off the suffering of immigrants,” said Ermelinda Velasquez, an organizer with El Pueblo Unido – Tampa Bay, during a Sept. 25 press conference and rally for a Manatee County man who was detained by ICE.
“Families are being asked to pay bail for their detained family members,” she said, “and once the families paid for the bail, the counties hand over the detained loved ones to ICE and pocket the bail money.”
Attorneys left in the dark about ICE detainers
As the original charges proceed through the courts, attorneys are left to argue the cases with their clients in absentia — sometimes without even being informed that their client has been taken by ICE, as in the case of at least one Florida county.
Just this month, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office adopted a policy of withholding information about ICE detainers to the public or the courts, leaving public defenders to guess about their clients’ status. A spokesperson for the office said the guidance came from ICE and the Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA).
Neither ICE nor the FSA responded to repeated requests for information about such a policy, and at least one other sheriff’s office was unfamiliar with it.
Stacy Scott, the public defender for the 8th Judicial Circuit, which includes Alachua County, said she worries about how the policy will affect her clients.
“All of a sudden, they’re just not in the jail anymore,” said Scott, who is also the president of the board of the Florida Public Defender Association. “We don’t know where they are. We assume where they are, but the jail is not allowed to inform us that they’re in ICE custody.”
As ICE arrests more people from local jails — a trend Suncoast Searchlight has documented in Florida and nationwide — defendants could be forced to choose between sitting in jail or paying a bond and risking ICE arrest.
“That’s not what people want to hear,” said Jessica Stern, a legal expert and consultant who specializes in the intersection of immigration and criminal law. Stern said she now advises lawyers to urge their immigrant clients against immediately bonding out.
It might be counterintuitive, she added, “but some people would rather make the decision to risk a little bit of their freedom at this moment to preserve their ability to stay in the country.”
Those who do opt to pay a bond — and are later detained or deported — frequently end up with a warrant for failing to appear in court, further complicating their case.
In a sample of 15 cases in Manatee County involving immigrants charged with driving without a license who were transferred to ICE this year, Suncoast Searchlight found that nine had received bench warrants for failure to appear in court, and five had court fees that were sent to collections. A representative for Manatee County Court Judge Melissa Gould did not return emailed questions about such cases.
That process is typical in Florida and nationwide, attorneys say.
“The normal course would be the case would just go into warrant status,” Scott said. “It won’t go forward, it won’t be docketed, it’ll just sort of be filed as active warrant status, [and] be left open in the criminal justice system.”
ICE detainers have faced legal challenges
For years, ICE’s use of detainers to keep immigrants locked up after they’ve posted bond has faced legal challenges, with critics arguing the agency is detaining people without sufficient probable cause. As evidence, some have pointed to instances where ICE has issued detainers for U.S. citizens.
A 2014 report published during former U.S. President Barack Obama’s second term found that 250 counties across the United States were unwilling to comply with ICE detainers due to concerns about their constitutionality.
In Florida, though, few jurisdictions have done so — and in 2019 the state went further, banning local jurisdictions from adopting any policy that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities. As of this month, all Florida sheriff’s offices have agreements permitting the use of ICE holds, according to a list published by ICE.
Gregg, the immigration attorney, said ICE holds are one example of how the federal government is “blurring the constitutional rights afforded to all people in America, including U.S. citizens.”
The government is currently focusing its attention on non-citizens, a more “palatable” target than U.S. citizens, Gregg said, pointing to immigration raids by masked ICE agents, the deportation of immigrants to El Saldavor’s notorious mega-prison and the expanded use of ICE detainers.
“But the rights that non-citizens lose can also be the rights that U.S. citizens lose.”
Alice Herman is an investigative/watchdog reporter and Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter for Suncoast Searchlight. Contact Alice at alice@suncoastearchlight.org and Kara at kara@suncoastsearchlight.org.
This story was originally published by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom delivering investigative journalism to Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
