{"id":186356,"date":"2026-03-10T22:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186356\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:29:09","slug":"orange-county-opposes-rumored-ice-detention-warehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/186356\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County opposes rumored ICE detention warehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orange County leaders voted to oppose a planned ICE facility in east Orlando<\/a> Tuesday, taking a \u201cprincipled stand\u201d against the agency\u2019s goal of converting a warehouse into a processing center for detainees.<\/p>\n

The unanimous vote by the Board of County Commissioners took place after dozens of people demonstrated outside the county building, playing tambourines, hand drums and egg shakers and singing, \u201cWe are many, We are one. We won\u2019t stop fighting till ICE is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal agency, flush with cash from President Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is seeking to vastly expand its detention capacity nationwide by buying warehouses and converting them into massive detention hubs.<\/p>\n

\"AerialAerial image of the Beachline Logistics Center, a 439,945-square-foot industrial facility, located at 8660 Transport Drive in east Orange County, on Wednesday, February 4, 2026. The warehouse could be future location for ICE. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda\/ Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official had toured the warehouse at 8660 Transport Drive, south of State Road 528\u2019s Sunbridge Parkway interchange, amid a surge of detentions in Central Florida in January.<\/p>\n

If it goes forward, the building would be turned into a processing center capable of holding about 1,500 detainees at a time.<\/a><\/p>\n

Board members argued such a facility would strain water and sewer capacity, harm the area\u2019s quality of life and dampen tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur responsibility is to protect the health, safety and well-being of our residents, preserve the integrity of our local land use process and ensure that major decisions effecting our community are not made without transparency, coordination or respect for local government,\u201d Mayor Jerry Demings said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis resolution makes clear that any proposal of this nature is incompatible with our community\u2019s values and priorities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The county resolution can\u2019t actually prevent the sale or conversion of the warehouse, however. Attorneys for the county and the city of Orlando, which has jurisdiction over the property, have said the U.S. Constitution\u2019s Supremacy Clause prioritizing federal law over local and state laws prevents them from blocking it.<\/p>\n

But at least a dozen similar planned facilities<\/a> have been scrapped nationwide following bipartisan opposition, including in Oklahoma, Missouri, New Hampshire and Mississippi. Others, however, are moving forward and have already begun awarding contracts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Orange County leaders again heard a deluge of comments from the public, with several dozen opposing the county\u2019s agreement with the federal government<\/a> that allows the detention of immigration detainees at the jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis resolution tells the world that Orange County will not remain silent in this moment of cruelty,\u201d said Barbeth Foster, an attorney working with the group Immigrants Are Welcome Here. \u201cWe absolutely, wholeheartedly support this resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others feared that the possible ICE detention center would be detrimental to the region\u2019s booming tourism industry, which employs thousands of immigrant workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe the people of Orange County feel that this county, and this part of Florida, is supposed to welcome people here,\u201d said Beverly Casseus, a member of the progressive group Florida Rising. \u201cHow can we make sure that we have tourism still coming and booming when the people who work in the industries are afraid to come to work?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone was celebratory. Ryan Smith, the chief strategist for Byron Donalds, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for governor, blasted Demings for the resolution. Demings, a Democrat, is also a gubernatorial candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cJerry Demings and Orange County Democrats are once again choosing political theater over public safety,\u201d Smith said in a statement. \u201cFlorida Democrats are trying to obstruct President Trump and federal law enforcement from removing criminal illegal aliens from our communities. That is reckless and irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donalds visited the warehouse site in January along with local GOP activists and announced his support of the proposed ICE facility.<\/p>\n

Outside the county building, demonstrators shared messages of hope and told stories of neighbors or friends who have been detained or impacted by the immigration detention surge nationwide.<\/p>\n

Hannah Miller, part of the Orlando Singing Resistance group, said\u00a0 the surge in ICE arrests which began in January<\/a> impacted not only those who are undocumented but those who are in the country legally too, she said.<\/p>\n

She told the story of an Hispanic Uber driver who quickly veered into a nearby neighborhood, pulled over and ran out of the car after seeing ICE vehicles on a recent ride in Orlando. The driver returned to the car after the cops drove away and began typing on his phone to communicate with Miller, who did not speak Spanish.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me, \u2018Sorry, I have my papers but when you\u2019re from another country they make it hard for you,\u2019\u201d Miller said.\u00a0The two sat in the car for a few minutes to decompress because he was scared. Before dropping her off, he showed her some photos of his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt so bad that the only thing I knew to say was, \u2018Take care of yourself,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For others, the crackdown on immigration is even more personal. Haitian immigrant Hedder Pierre Joseph, who attended the event and sang alongside the group, said she is now a naturalized citizen but still feels vulnerable amidst the crackdown on immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent 16 years undocumented myself, so I understand,\u201d said Pierre Joseph, a candidate for the District 6 seat on the Orange County Commission. \u201cWe didn\u2019t come over here because we wanted to \u2026 to an America where we are not welcome. We came to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ProtestersProtesters hold signs outside the Orange County Administration building in downtown Orlando, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. The county commission was scheduled to vote Tuesday on a resolution opposing plans to convert an Orange County warehouse into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

The group, Orlando Singing Resistance, formed recently as part of a nationwide movement of singers that began in Minnesota during the federal surge there.<\/p>\n

U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost joined the group on Tuesday and played a cajon, a square-like drum originally from Peru, to the beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want this to pass today,\u201d Frost, D-Orlando, said of the resolution. \u201cBut of course we know there\u2019s more work to do here in Orange County, here in Florida, across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County leaders voted to oppose a planned ICE facility in east Orlando Tuesday, taking a \u201cprincipled stand\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-186356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-orange-county","13":"tag-orlando","14":"tag-orlando-headlines","15":"tag-orlando-news","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}