The February 14 Talk of the Town will feature two sheriffs and an immigrant advocate.
By Ramon Lopez
Original Air Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Immigration enforcement is making headlines, and a panel this Saturday—on the stage of the Fogartyville Community Center, airing live on WSLR—will put the spotlight on the issue. Ramon Lopez brings you more details.
Ramon Lopez: ICE—not the stuff that has caked much of the country in recent weeks, but the federal law enforcement agency charged with imposing Trump-style U.S. immigration policy and law—continues to be a hot-button topic, both locally and nationwide.
The controversial matter will get a detailed airing at 11 a.m. on Saturday, February 14. Coming live from Fogartyville will be Talk of the Town, a WSLR News roundtable hosted by journalist and author Carrie Seidman.
The panel-style program features politicians, activists, academics, policy analysts and investigative journalists, who join Seidman for a deep dive into the local issues of the day.
The topic? ICE enforcement and deportation in the State of Florida.
Daniela Arcadia
Her guests will be Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman; former Orange County Sheriff, current Orange County Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Demings; and Daniela Arcadia, co-director of the grassroots organization El Pueblo Unido Tampa Bay.
For Hoffman and Demings, it’s a divergent “tale of two cities.” Hoffman backs Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ hardline immigration dragnet. Demings has frequently clashed with DeSantis over immigration enforcement.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has emerged as one of the Suncoast’s most active partners with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The county’s growing role comes under a federal program called 287(g).
The initiative authorizes local police and sheriff’s deputies to perform duties typically reserved for ICE agents, including making civil immigration arrests on the street and holding people in local jails for ICE pickup. Furthermore, some of Sheriff Hoffman’s deputies patrol the Everglades immigration jail known as Alligator Alcatraz.
Immigrant rights groups have warned that this diverts local cops from normal policing, risks racial profiling and erodes community trust.
But Sarasota County’s top cop is unapologetic.
Sarasota Sheriff Kurt Hoffman. Photo courtesy of the Sarasota Co. Sheriff’s Department via Suncoast Searchlight
Kurt Hoffman: We can go out into the field, or if we are on patrol in the field and we encounter a criminal—illegal aliens—we can then take—with the ICE credentials from the task force model, we can actually arrest that person and bring them to jail on the charge them with the ICE warrant.
I know folks have said to me, “This is impacting Central America” or “It’s all folks that are from Mexico.” We’re not picking on anybody in particular. If you commit a criminal offense in Sarasota County, particularly some of these serious ones, then there’s going to be some serious consequences. By helping the federal government—by helping the state government—we’re a good law enforcement partner. On top of that, the folks that we’re sending to Alligator Alcatraz are primarily our ERT members—our emergency response team members. They’re built for this type of mission. It’s very good training for them.
Frankly, I’ve got a good firsthand opinion of how Alligator Alcatraz is being operated. I spoke to supervisors. So this myth that Alligator Alcatraz is this black hole where people go and are being treated inappropriately is not, not the case.
RL: This past summer, Demings and the Orange County Commission declined to sign an agreement with ICE to let county jail officials transport immigration detainees.
Jerry Demings
After initially saying he was not going to be bullied, Demings signed the agreement “under protest and extreme duress.” He added: “Yes, I signed the damn thing because we really had to.”
Federal officials are reportedly eyeing an industrial warehouse in Orlando as a potential site for yet another ICE detention center in Florida.
Demings has joined two U.S. lawmakers from Central Florida in saying: “Don’t do it.” They say the warehouse being considered by ICE is not zoned for human residence. Furthermore, they said the state “does not need another facility used to tear local families apart.”
Democrat David Jolly, running against Demings for the nomination, said last month that he also opposes a new ICE facility in Central Florida. But GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds supports the proposed ICE house.
The current role of local cops in support of ICE’s immigration dragnet might change should a Democrat be elected Florida’s next governor.
In Virginia last week, Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, in one of her first actions as governor, rescinded former Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that deputized state police and law enforcement agencies to assist ICE in Virginia.
This is Ramon Lopez for WSLR News.
Host: The Talk of the Town event this Saturday is fully booked, but you can listen to it live on 96.5 FM, streaming on wslr.org. Also watch the livestream on the Fogartyville’s YouTube channel.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.