Gulfport Police Chief Mary Farrand (r) addresses the Mayor and City Council. By Seán Kinane/WMNF News (2026 Feb. 26).
Some Gulfport residents are concerned about a cooperation agreement the Pinellas County city signed with federal immigration authorities.
But after a two-and-a-half-hour workshop Thursday night, city council declined to further discuss the 287(g) agreement in a regular meeting.
That doesn’t sit well with Council Member April Thanos.
“It doesn’t look like it’s going any further. And I understand that because you don’t want to all of a sudden have people coming after you. And then — we’re a small city we don’t have a big budget for lawsuits. So I get that. But it also scares me a little. And again it’s after the fact but we should never have signed this,” Thanos told WMNF.
During the workshop, twenty-three residents of Gulfport or nearby cities shared their thoughts about immigration enforcement and the city’s agreement to assist ICE.
There was a range of opinions during public comment. But most people, like Lauren Stern, hoped that city council would reconsider cooperating with a federal agency that has a history of violating people’s rights.
“This is where Nazi Germany slid, and this is what it looked like, where local jurisdictions, local municipalities just felt like it. It was small local issues. It was, you know, our friendly local police officer, our neighbors. We love our neighbors, right? And then it escalates way beyond something that can be stopped by, you know, any kind of local community,” Stern said.
Mayor Karen Love said Gulfport is safer than if it hadn’t signed the 287(g) agreement. She suggested that ICE would be more likely to stay away if the city sticks with the deal and that Gulfport Police have a more humane touch than the feds.
Gulfport Police Chief Mary Farrand said that in the year since the previous chief signed the deal with ICE, the city has processed no migrants under the agreement.
She says that if ICE did an immigration enforcement action in Gulfport, the city’s police would assist, but they would remain under her command.
Organizers with the Tampa Bay Immigrant Solidarity Network walked door-to-door in Gulfport last weekend handing out flyers to draw attention to the workshop.