ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri elaborated on his agency's partnership with ICE during a heated community discussion on Monday.
Gualtieri shared the stage at the event, sponsored by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, with Isabel Sousa-Rodriguez, director of membership and organizing for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, and Mayro Calo, an immigration attorney.
PCSO is one of 17 sheriff's departments across the state that agreed to hold illegal immigrants in jail so they can be picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Manatee, Hernando, Polk, Sarasota, Hillsborough and Pasco counties are among those partnering with ICE.
Under the agreement, inmates become "federal detainees" inside the county jail and can be held longer.
“We cannot continue to keep doing what we’ve been doing and have sheriffs faced with the situation of putting illegals on the street or run the risk of getting sued and having six-figure judgments," Gualtieri said when the partnership was announced in January. "No sheriff in this country should be faced with making that decision.”
The agreement has been met with opposition who have described it as a 'scheme.'
"Florida sheriffs have no federal authority to initiate a federal arrest of immigrants who, under the criminal justice system, have a right to be released," Sousa-Rodriguez said in a statement. "Holding people because of assumptions of their immigration status is unconstitutional."
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