Immigration arrests surge in Central Florida. Could they max out Orange's jail?

Ryan Gillespie, Orlando Sentinel on May 31, 2025

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Pressure from the Trump administration to escalate immigration arrests has led to huge spike in the number of people detained by ICE in Central Florida and raised fears that the Orange County jail could eventually hit its capacity.

The number of detainees held in the local jail for immigration violations so far this year is nearly 400% higher than last year, officials said.

Before a panel of sheriffs and police chiefs last month, Orange Public Safety Director Danny Banks warned of the possible consequences of the surge of detainees — including some who had never before set foot in the county.

“I’m fearful that it’s going to lead us to maxing out our jail space,” he said of an influx of ICE inmates coming from Orange and neighboring counties.

The Pinellas County sheriff is already staring down Banks’ fears, with 200 inmates in his county jail sleeping on the floor because of the flood of new detainees held for immigration violations.

In the past month alone, 267 people were booked into the Orange County jail solely on immigration charges, compared with 259 in the previous four months combined, according to data obtained by The Orlando Sentinel.

The Orange County jail is one of only a handful in the state authorized to hold people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That means people arrested in places as far away as Indian River and Polk counties — in some cases about 100 miles from the jail just south of downtown Orlando — are being booked into the local facility.

Banks said if arrests keep climbing as expected, as more local law enforcement agencies are deputized by federal authorities, the county jail’s bed space could be maxed out.

“I do think it’s going to get to that,” Banks said Friday. “I expect the numbers will go up. That will increase the daily number of bookings and we’re going to get closer and closer to our capacity.”

As of Friday morning, 3,099 inmates were housed at the Orange County Jail, which has a capacity of about 4,000 beds. About 10 of those were from outside of Orange on ICE detainers, said Tracy Zampaglione, a jail spokesperson. Banks said that the number fluctuates day to day, with little notice.

For instance, on one recent day, the Florida Highway Patrol brought over about 40 immigration detainees from Lake County, Banks said.

Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said his county, which like Orange has a federal agreement with ICE, wants federal leaders to let all of Florida’s jails house those arrested in their respective counties.

“We have to keep other housing units free for these ICE inmates, which are coming from all over the place, before they can get them on the bus” to an Ice processing center, he said.

“We’re out of space,” he added. “There’s an infrastructure problem.”

Across Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties combined, local authorities have seen 1,796 people who have been processed with ICE detainers so far this year, with 1,485 turned over to federal authorities, according to data obtained by The Orlando Sentinel.

In all of 2024, Orange County booked about 800 people on such detainers. By May 28, 2025’s count had already hit 1,314 people.

That surge is largely a product of federal authorities inputting thousands more warrants into the National Crime Information Center, which alerts law enforcement of a warrant when they plug somebody’s name into a computer during traffic stops or other encounters.

“Any occasion in which law enforcement comes across someone where they run their information — a traffic stop, or they show up to the house for an argument, historically that call didn’t necessitate an arrest,” Banks said. “Unfortunately, now they’re forced to arrest them.”

Fewer than 1 in 5 of Central Florida’s ICE detainees so far this year were charged with felonies, ranging from 11.5% in Lake to 18.6% in Orange.

Last week, Axios reported the Trump administration was pushing for ICE to bump its daily arrests to 3,000 per day, with a White House spokesperson saying “keeping President Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens is something the administration takes seriously.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller confirmed the story on Fox News and said that was the minimum goal, and that it would only climb higher over time.

The State Immigration Enforcement Council, made up of sheriffs and chiefs appointed by state leaders, voted last month on a resolution calling on the Trump administration to allow inmates to be housed in all county jail facilities, not just those with agreements like Orange has had for decades.

The same resolution stated Florida was ready to set up a 10,000-bed facility to house migrants, if federal funding was issued.

Polk Sheriff Grady Judd, who chairs the committee, said he had 200 beds at his jail that he could use.

“If our county jails under the Florida Model Jail Standards are good enough to house non-convicted U.S. citizens, certainly it ought to be satisfactory to house illegal immigrants who are here with a deportation warrant,” Judd said.