(The Center Square) – After a standoff with the attorney general over not signing an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assist with transportation, a central Florida mayor acquiesced. After he signed it, the county commissioners adopted the proposal on Tuesday.
Last week, Attorney General James Uthmeier sent a letter to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings and county commissioners warning them to comply with state law and sign an addendum to an agreement with ICE to assist with transportating illegal foreign nationals to detention facilities through ICE’s 287(g) program or face being removed from office.
The county corrections facility had entered into a 287(g) agreement in February. Last month, Demmings directed the facility not to comply with a request to amend the agreement saying the county didn’t have the resources or staff to comply, The Center Square reported.
The attorney general threatened to remove him and members of the commissioner’s court from office if they didn’t comply, citing Florida statute.
Within days, the mayor signed the agreement saying he did so under duress.
“Yes, I signed the damn thing because we really had to. We were put in a tough spot. I can’t let our entire board of county commissioners and myself be removed from office. I did not want to be in a position where the governor would have the opportunity to insert his minions in the roles to lead this county,” Demings said at a news conference in Orlando. He also said it would be “catastrophic” to have people who weren’t elected to replace them. Threats of being removed from office created “anxiety” for county employees and residents, he said.
In response to reporter inquiries, he said, “I signed under protest and in extreme duress.”
He also said the county should be reimbursed for holding ICE detainees and that corrections officers need specialized training to perform “dangerous” immigration transport.
“Orange County believes in lawful immigration,” he added. “Orange County is not a sanctuary county. We have never, through resolution or otherwise, from our board of county commissioners, agreed to adopt sanctuary types of policies.”
The board met on Tuesday and ratified the agreement by a vote of 5-2. Sixty members of the public registered to speak about it, with many urging the court to sue the state.
County Attorney Jeffrey Newton said at the meeting that he disagreed with the attorney general’s interpretation of “best efforts,” adding that it is an “ambiguous term, and probably purposely unclear.”
The attorney general’s letter to Demmings said state law requires local authorities to comply with federal immigration law and requires them “to use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
“Despite the fact that I disagree with the attorney general in terms of his interpretation of ‘best efforts,’ that ‘best efforts,’ and his interpretation of it, is buttressed by something that I have not seen in my 41 years of practicing law, and that is – it is buttressed with a threat, a threat to remove each and every one of you from office,” Newton said.
“You are my commissioners,” he told them. “You are my mayor and I represent this organization, and I’m not going to advise you to allow the governor and attorney general to remove you from office, because that’s what I think would happen if you decide not to approve this addendum.”
However, he advised them to approve the addendum, saying, “that does not mean that at some point in time we won’t file the damn lawsuit.”
Demings also repeated a claim he made before that the county corrections facility has “never been requested to provide transport officers and may never be requested to transport ICE detainees.”
“It is our belief that if such a request is ever made, we will have the opportunity at that time to engage in conversation about our operational readiness and capacity to honor such a request, as well as discuss any negative impacts on public safety for our jail and community,” he added.
By signing the agreement, he said they “thwarted the calamity of the potential removal from office of our entire commission.”
