The immigration enforcement agency is looking for office space in Florida, including in Sarasota.
By Alice Herman/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: April 1, 2026
Host: If you toil in a co-working space around Southwest Florida, you could soon get new officemates: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. As ICE expands operations throughout the country, the agency is seeking flexible working space for its employees in 11 Florida cities, including Sarasota and Bradenton. Alice Herman with Suncoast Searchlight reports.
Alice Herman: The push comes as Florida leads the nation in ICE apprehensions and local law enforcement cash in on state funding for immigration enforcement. The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office brought in more than $1.1 million from Florida’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement in February.
Florida leads the nation in immigration arrests. Photo courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Suncoast Searchlight
ICE has identified more cities in Florida than any other state where it is seeking office space, followed by Arizona and California. That’s according to documents posted to the government procurement website sam.gov.
The focus on Florida reflects how the state has furthered President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda through local cooperation—without high-profile sweeps like those in prominent blue cities like Minneapolis.
The national push would see roughly 300 federal employees placed in flexible office spaces across 90 cities. In a statement, an ICE spokesperson wrote that the agency has increased its national presence by 12,000 officers but declined to answer questions about its work in Sarasota and Bradenton.
The federal agency’s renewed push for flexible office space comes after an initial effort to expand its footprint in Southwest Florida. In September, ICE put out a request to lease larger blocks of office space in Tampa and Fort Myers.
But the agency has concealed its local contracts. According to a report by the outlet WIRED, ICE began leasing offices across the country without disclosing their locations. Some of those offices are located near sensitive spaces like schools, churches and medical facilities, according to the WIRED report.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has emerged as one of the Suncoast’s most active partners with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Photo by Alice Herman via Suncoast Searchlight
Across Florida, ICE apprehensions increased dramatically last year. Roughly 20,000 arrests were reported between Trump’s January 20 inauguration and October 15, 2025 compared to about 5,400 for the same time frame during the year prior, according to data obtained from the Deportation Data Project. About a quarter of those arrested in Florida by ICE in 2025 had only immigration violations and no criminal charges or convictions. More than two-thirds had no convictions.
As Florida law enforcement agencies ramp up immigration-related arrests, the human rights group Amnesty International has alleged that people held at Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration jail in the Everglades, have been subject to torture. And individuals in the Krome detention facility in Miami have reported medical neglect, overcrowding and hunger.
Local immigrant rights groups and churches have sought to provide aid for families experiencing deportations.
Sarasota community members gathered at a prayer vigil for Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis man who was shot and killed by Customs and Border Protection agents in January. Photo by Alice Herman via Suncoast Searchlight
Ermelinda Velasquez, a Bradenton organizer with the mutual aid and immigrant advocacy group El Pueblo Unido Tampa Bay, said that she has “seen families struggling to keep their bills paid.” According to ICE arrest data reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight, nearly 90 percent of ICE arrests in Florida last year targeted men—leaving some families in economic distress. Velasquez told Suncoast Searchlight that her organization has supported moms who had become homeless or had to move in with family members.
The large-scale effort to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants has even led some of the most conservative Florida law enforcement leaders to call for reform.
During a March 16 meeting of the State Immigration Enforcement Council, Chairman Grady Judd, the Polk County sheriff, said he had heard from local conservatives concerned about the arrests of undocumented Floridians.
Grady Judd: Their concern is that there are those in the country that have been here for a very long time—that have been permitted to stay here for a very long time—that, now, under this particular set of circumstances, are being swept up and taken out of the country.
AH: That was Sheriff Grady Judd. He also related a story about an undocumented woman in her 20’s who immigrated to the United States from Colombia as a child and was deported while seeking legal status in the country.
GJ: She was in her late 20’s trying to go through the process to become legalized, and she was scooped up out of the waiting room at ICE for deportation back to Colombia, and it was like, “Well, where in Colombia do I go? I don’t have any relatives, I don’t know anybody in Colombia. But you’re gonna put me on a plane and send me back to a country that I left as a child?”
AH: Judd said he would support the federal government creating a pathway for undocumented immigrants without criminal backgrounds to obtain status in the country.
Reporting for Suncoast Searchlight, this has been Alice Herman.
To read the full report, visit suncoastsearchlight.org/ice-co-working-spaces-florida.
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