In the wake of rumors that ICE was eyeing an office building in the Central Florida Research Park, a federal official told U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost’s Office this week that the agency isn’t planning to move in.
Last month, Wired, a science and technology news outlet, reported Immigration and Custom Enforcement was seeking to ramp up its office footprint across the country as it rapidly hires immigration officers and attorneys to carry out President Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Among dozens of properties listed in records obtained by the organization was an office building in the defense and technology-focused research park next to the University of Central Florida.
But the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees real estate holdings for the government, stated that ICE wasn’t moving into the reported address in response to emailed questions from Frost’s staff.
Following the Wired report in February, the executive director of the 1,000-acre technology and innovation hub had said he’d received no inquiries from the agency about a purchase or lease – and he would have to approve any such use due to deed restrictions on all of the lots in the property.
The research park, a critical piece of regional efforts to bring high-wage jobs to Central Florida, has 9.500 employees across 68 buildings.
ICE already has an office building in the area at 9495 Delegates Drive, just south of the interchange of Florida’s Turnpike and State Road 528.
The agency is also heavily rumored to be considering the purchase of a warehouse in east Orlando as part of a nationwide initiative to convert such industrial places into detention centers.