Orange County’s negotiations with the federal government to increase its reimbursement for jailing federal inmates and immigrant detainees could now last through the end of March.
In a letter sent to the U.S. Marshals Service by Mayor Jerry Demings earlier this month, he set a March 13 deadline to end the negotiations. The feds have since asked for an extension through March 31, which the mayor granted, a spokesperson said.
“The USMS has provided a prompt response to Mayor Demings’ letter and has indicated a willingness to further negotiate our rate of reimbursement under the IGSA,” Public Safety Director Danny Banks wrote in a letter to the Board of County Commissioners. “Mayor Demings has endorsed their request, and we will continue to conduct negotiations through the extended timeframe.”
At issue is a disparity in how much it costs to house a federal inmate or detainee, and how much the Marshals reimburse the county. The county says it costs about $180 per day, while their reimbursement from the feds is $88 per day.
That dispute became an even bigger issue last month, when the number of ICE detainees facing no criminal charges at the jail climbed to as high as 185 in a given day. More than 60% of those were held longer than the three days required under the Intergovernmental Support Agreement, or IGSA.
Following that surge, Demings sent a letter to a local ICE official capping the number of people it would detain at the jail without criminal charges, and barring the agency from booking a non-criminal detainee more than once.
Aisha Ogburn, a USMS official, responded to Demings on Friday. Due to the large increase requested, it would take several reviews “and it would be beneficial to both parties in terms of a favorable outcome if he extends his deadline to March 31.”
The Marshals acknowledged the county’s request to renegotiate the decade-plus old contract in August, Demings said at a Board of County Commissioners meeting this month. But the agency hasn’t substantively engaged with the county ever since.
Demings sent a letter to the USMS soon after, setting a March 13 deadline to come to terms and posturing that the county may cancel the agreement altogether.
The negotiation comes as ICE is also embarking on a $38 billion plan to vastly expand its detention space by purchasing warehouses around the country and converting them into processing or detention centers. One such targeted facility is in east Orlando on Transport Drive.
Bloomberg reported this week that the plan is an effort to shift away from a reliance on local jails and privately owned prisons to larger, government-owned detention centers.