Orange County leaders signaled Tuesday they’ll take a more aggressive posture in their demand to be reimbursed in full for housing ICE detainees in its jail.
But it appears the immigration agency has already gotten the message, as it’s drastically reduced the number of people detained there since last month.
Tuesday’s Board of County Commissioners meeting also came amid increasing pushback against a proposed federal detention center at a warehouse in east Orlando, with a resolution opposing it expected in the coming weeks.
But the board stopped short of agreeing with a bevy of outraged public commenters, who urged them to file a lawsuit against the state or federal government.
Mayor Jerry Demings hinted such an action is potentially on the table, but that doing so now would run counter to legal advice he’d received.
“I know it may not be apparent, but this is what we’re doing. This is why letters have been sent,” he said. “People are impatient, they want it, like, yesterday – but we’re going through a process.”
Demings sent a letter last week to Norman Bradley, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official based in Orlando, informing him the county would be capping the number of people allowed in the jail without criminal charges. It would also ban so-called rebookings of detainees as of March 1.
The number of people detained in Orange County’s jail solely for immigration violations has plummeted as the calendar turned to February. As of Tuesday, nobody in the jail had been booked multiple times, Corrections Chief Louis Quiñones said.
In January, rebookings accounted for 64% of the total bookings of those facing no criminal charges beyond their immigration violation. A rebooking is when somebody was picked up by ICE before the 72-hour clock expired for those who face no local criminal charges, only to be brought back a short time later to restart the ticking clock.
On Jan. 29, there were 182 people without criminal charges detained at the jail, and 63% of them were considered a rebooking by jail personnel. That count has decreased each day of February.
On Feb. 1 there were 145 such detainees, and by Feb. 5, the count had dropped to 59.
Over the past 90 days, four detainees have been rebooked eight times, and four more seven times – which means what should have been a three-day detention resulted in someone staying in the jail for nearly a month without facing criminal charges.
Members from the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union Local 737 listen as community members address the Board of Orange County Commissioners at the Orange County Administration Building on Tuesday, February 10, 2026. The union members gathered to urge the county commissioners to push for accountability related to ICE detention and the potential expansion of ICE detention facilities in Central Florida. (Rich Pope/ Orlando Sentinel)
Demings also said, at the urging of commissioners, that he’d send a letter to the U.S. Marshals Service giving them a deadline to enter into negotiations with Orange County over reimbursement for housing ICE detainees and inmates. For years, the county has been reimbursed $88 per day, when the actual cost to taxpayers is $180.
In August, the county received confirmation that the federal agency had received the county’s request to enter into negotiations. And last week, Quiñones was told that the request had been escalated to higher-ups.
Commissioner Kelly Semrad, who has long supported the county suing to determine what the county is required to do under state law, again urged her colleagues to file a lawsuit.
“In our pathway of trying to build what is perfect, we’re putting at risk corrections officers in the jail … we’re putting at risk paying overtime… what’s beginning to happen is we’re putting people at risk,” she said. “It’s time for us to file some form of a suit.”
Her proposal was backed by a coalition of people who addressed the board during public comment, as they’ve done at meetings for much of the past year.
“Residents of Orange County deserve to be treated with dignity and justice, not locked up because they look a certain way,” said Virginia Meany of Apopka.
Sheena Rolle, the Chief Strategy Officer for the progressive group Florida Rising, urged county leaders to file such a suit.
“Only this commission can file this lawsuit. So we’re asking you to unite, do the thing in your lane that you can do while you have the power you have, because democracy dies in silence,” she said.
In a statement, Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, the executive director of the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka, said the discussion “revealed a stunning lack of clarity” and showed why a suit is necessary.
“It is now apparent that no one, not even the county attorney, can definitively say what the county is legally obligated to do,” he said. “They are caught between a vaguely worded [agreement] with ICE and a state law mandating ‘best efforts’ to assist federal immigration enforcement. A fundamental question hangs in the air: What constitutes a ‘best effort,’ and does it require the violation of basic rights?”
The county also declined to immediately pursue a moratorium on detention facilities proposed by Commissioner Nicole Wilson. She asked for one in a memo last month as news surfaced that ICE was considering opening a processing facility for up to 1,500 people near Sunbridge Parkway in east Orlando.
Just like Orlando’s city attorney, county attorneys noted that the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution would make such a move ineffective if the feds sought to open such a facility. Florida’s Senate Bill 180 would also prevent the county from implementing any sort of moratorium, as places such as Kansas City, Mo., have done.
While no formal vote was taken, she seemed to have consensus from the board for a resolution opposing it.
“That’s the path we’re taking,” Demings said.
