U.S. Reps. Maxwell Frost & Darren Soto tell Kristi Noem Not to Open ICE facility in Central Florida

Two Democratic U.S. Reps. from Central Florida — Maxwell Frost and Darren Soto — have written a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons regarding speculation they will soon open an ICE detention center in Orlando.

Their message is simple: Don’t do it.

“We write to strongly and unequivocally oppose the opening of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Central Florida,” write Frost and Soto in the letter sent out on Friday. “We do not need additional ICE facilities to accompany the excessive immigration enforcement within our state that is being used to tear local families apart. Many of our constituents have raised concerns and opposition to the detention center proposal.”

Reports of ICE opening a processing center in southeast Orlando have emerged in recent weeks, with a reported cost of nearly $100 million, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Naples U.S. Rep. and GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds visited the site last week, where he spoke in support of the proposed facility.

“When you are going to deport millions of criminal illegals out of our country, it is a major logistical effort,” he said. “You have to be able to house people, process them properly. Prepare them to leave the country. It’s not just something that you snap your fingers and it happens overnight. It is an orderly process that must happen.”

In their letter, Frost and Soto write that the warehouse being considered by ICE is not zoned for human residence and is inadequate to accommodate waste management and general habitation.

“We are especially concerned regarding the risks to human life and safety should such a structure be hit with natural disasters. Given the deplorable conditions at other ICE facilities, we find it increasingly difficult to believe that this facility would do more than propagate suffering for the people of Central Florida.”

If Homeland Security does open an ICE facility in Orlando, local officials are powerless to stop them.

Citing the Federal Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Mayanne Downs, Orlando’s city attorney, wrote in a legal opinion last week that ICE is “immune from any local regulation that interferes in any way with its federal mandate.

“In sum, we can take no action to limit or regulate any activity by the federal government in its action to enforce federal immigration law, and that is clear and not debatable under the law of the United States and Florida,” Downs concluded.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, told Orange County Commissioners last week that “none of us want to have a detention or ICE detention facility here, because of what we’re seeing,” according to Central Florida Public Media.

Democrat David Jolly, running against Demings for the nomination, said last month that he also opposes a new ICE facility in Central Florida.

“Expanding detention facilities in Orlando won’t make the community safer, just more fearful. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now,” he said on X.