JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Immigrant Rights Alliance (JIRA) organized a large protest downtown, outside of the federal courthouse, to call for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies in Duval County to end their agreements with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Even though the protest was in direct response to the killing of Alex Pretti, the ICU nurse shot over the weekend by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, multiple protestors told Action News Jax they believe local law enforcement agreements with ICE are unnecessary and dangerous.
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“My children are scared to leave the house. I’m scared to leave the house,” said Nina Vallecillo, who said she and her kids are U.S. citizens but have been worried about being stopped in public by federal officers.
Caroline Schultz, another protestor, thinks ICE shouldn’t need local agencies to support its efforts, since its budget is higher than $75 billion.
“They don’t need any of the officers at UNF. They don’t need any of the Florida Highway Patrol. They don’t need any of the JSO. They don’t need any of these people to help them,” said Schultz.
JSO, currently, has what’s called a 287(g) agreement with ICE. The agreement, simply put, allows ICE officers to train JSO officers to carry out immigration operations and gives ICE more power to operate in local communities. Action News Jax went through ICE’s data and found that there are 17 similar agreements with other law enforcement agencies around northeast Florida. There are only two of these agreements with law enforcement agencies in southeast Georgia and, at least, nine agencies in our area without this type of ICE agreement.
Protest organizers with JIRA don’t believe the partnerships help to keep communities safer and are anxious about seeing federal immigration officers in their neighborhoods.
“Local law enforcement also trying to act as a function of ICE? That’s dangerous, and it’s reckless,” said Jonathan Gonzalo Kleinick, one of JIRA’s co-founders.
The 287(g) agreements with ICE allow for either party to suspend or terminate them. We reached out to JSO to ask about the status of its agreement with ICE. In a statement, JSO told us this:
“The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office continually partners with a variety of federal agencies, to include I.C.E., as it relates to immigration violations and enforcement. In that vein, we have been an active participant in the 287g program for more than fifteen years. We will continue in this endeavor to enforce all applicable laws and partner with local, state, and federal agencies in an effort to make our community a safer place for families to thrive.”
JIRA told Action News Jax it is planning more ICE protests in Jacksonville, without making mention of whether any more are happening in the coming days.
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