The Orange County Commission on Tuesday wrestled with the funding shortfall for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the county jail, the limits of its legal requirements to cooperate with ICE, and what to do about a potential detention center in the county.
In the end, the commission began to plan its response but took no final action.
"There's a process for us to be able to meet all of the demands that our community is making," said Mayor Jerry Demings after a long discussion about the agreement with the federal government that allows ICE agents to bring detainees to the jail.
"We are responding in an appropriate way, to make certain that we're taking care of our community, and the federal government still has its ability to carry out its obligation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a very humane way, a constitutional way," Demings said. "We're not trying to impede that. We're not trying to impede the state of Florida in that process. But what we are trying to do is have the right balance here."
The board discussion began with an examination of the current Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA), which allows ICE to use the Orange County Jail to house its detainees until they are taken to court or a federal detention center.
The county is reimbursed $88 a day per detainee. However, the daily cost of housing an inmate is $180 per ICE detainee, according to Orange County Corrections Chief Louis Quiñones.
The agreement to house ICE detainees is stressing the jail's operations and staffing resources, Quiñones said. The January ICE detainee bookings totaled 1,849 inmates, according to the Correction Department. That's up substantially from October, when the total bookings were 550.
Last week, Demings sent a letter to ICE saying that, beginning March 1, the jail would cap how many ICE detainees being held without local charges could be present in the county jail. The limit he set is 66 men and 64 women, for a total of 130 inmates.
In January, the daily average was 142 detainees without charges, and the overall average, including detainees with local criminal charges, was 361, according to county data.
The county addressed the issue of increasing the compensation for housing ICE detainees in August. Legally, ICE had 120 days or more to respond.
Those 120 days were reached in December, Quiñones said.
Demings and the commissioners agreed to enter discussions to establish a deadline for ICE to respond regarding the reimbursement rate.
As for its legal requirements, the board resolved to meet with the county attorney's office to consider potential litigation seeking clarification of the "best efforts" standard in state law, including whether the county has met its obligation to cooperate with ICE.
"I feel like we've done our best efforts," said District 6 Commissioner Michael Scott. "When we originally started this, we were short 200 (correctional) officers. We're still short 100 officers…. We've struggled from the staffing standpoint and from the fiscal standpoint, because we're not being reimbursed the full amount."
During the public comment section of the meeting, several residents urged the county to take legal action against ICE to block the agency's efforts in detaining undocumented immigrants or immigrants here legally, such as those with a "temporary protected status."
Pastor Sarah Robinson of the Audubon Park Covenant Church said she and others working with immigrants have been asking for legal action since June.
"File a lawsuit. That is not an action that can get them removed. We know that this is a safe and necessary action for them to get clarification on what level of participation they need to be (doing), because the level right now is not acceptable," she said.
Finally, the board agreed to consider drafting a resolution publicly objecting to the creation of an ICE detention facility in the county. In January, ICE agents toured an east Orange County warehouse in Sunbridge Parkway, considering the possibility of retrofitting it into a detention center.
"It was terrifying to think about something that was built as part of a commerce park to hold widgets to be used for putting human beings," said District 1 Commissioner Nicole Wilson.
Wilson proposed a moratorium on detention facilities, but the county's legal counsel advised against it due to other legal conflicts, such as Florida SB 180, a recent law that prevents the county from declaring a "restrictive" measure like a moratorium following a hurricane.
"I believe we have an opportunity," Wilson said, "to establish something very publicly that notifies whoever it might be, that a non-municipal detention facility would be detrimental to Orange County, and especially one this large, and specifically in this case, with what has been very little to no communication from the federal agency."
There was no formal vote on a resolution, but a consensus on drafting one.
"The board will contemplate the passage of some type of resolution centered around a potential detention facility, a federal detention facility within our jurisdiction," Demings said. "We have not made final decisions on that, but that's the path that we're taking."
Copyright 2026 Central Florida Public Media
