ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — After an initial surge of immigration-related arrests as federal agents rushed to round up suspected criminals, data from the biggest Central Florida jail shows bookings are trending down.
Local, state and federal law enforcement officers arrested 264 undocumented immigrants in February, as many Florida sheriffs praised their expanded powers to enforce the law.
It was also the month Gov. DeSantis’ administration required local sheriff’s offices and jails to enter into agreements to work with ICE and turn immigrants over for deportation.
Among the 264 arrests, 115 did not have any local charges attached, the jail reported.
However, February’s numbers represented a peak. While total undocumented immigrant bookings declined slightly in March, the number of bookings without a local charge dropped by more than half, to 51.
As of April 15, the Orange County Jail was on track to hold just 40 immigrants without a local charge by the end of the month.
The data did not contain an explanation for the change. However, one immigration attorney said the ebb was expected as federal agents worked their way through their list of people suspected of having gang ties and as the administration shifted its focus to hunting down pro-Palestine protesters.
“You’re seeing the Trump administration escalate, deescalate, escalate, deescalate based on foreign policy and things of that nature,” Trip Law’s Hardam Tripathi explained. “You’re also seeing the immigrants themselves not wanting to be separated from their families. So they’re actually following our advice.”
Tripathi said immigrants were avoiding law enforcement interactions, including ICE check-ins for people trying to claim asylum.
He said the skipped meetings resulted in deportation proceedings beginning against them—the very action they were trying to avoid.
It’s not clear, but it’s unlikely the trend is specific to Orange County. WFTV reached out to jails across Central Florida asking for their numbers. However, many staff members were off for Good Friday and promised responses after the holiday weekend.
When their expanded powers were announced, sheriffs said they would not be going after law-abiding immigrants – even undocumented ones. However, they warned that something as little as a traffic stop would kick the deportation process into motion.
That means, despite the decline, immigration arrests are likely to continue until political or policy winds shift. Leaders estimate up to 20,000 people could have deportation orders attached to their names in Orange County alone as soon as ICE updates its systems. Currently, 10,000 are being ordered to leave the United States, they reported.
Tripathi said bottlenecks plague the system. Some are self-inflicted: he said Trump is attempting to root out more lenient immigration judges or ones deemed insufficiently loyal to his administration, causing an ongoing shortage of judges to worsen.
There is also a lack of space in detention centers, which officials are trying to solve by opening new ones.
However, it’s still not enough to whittle down the millions of ongoing cases. Tripathi said some of his clients have been released back to their families in Florida, despite the government’s promise to hold them until deportation.
“They’re doing their best from a government standpoint, and we as attorneys are doing our best trying to represent our clients,” he said. “There’s just such a backlog of cases and people being apprehended that it’s just become a very chaotic system.”
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