ST PETERSBURG — A crowd of around 75 people gathered here on Saturday to strategize ways to persuade the police chiefs of Tampa and St. Petersburg to void partnership agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they entered into earlier this year.
Legislation signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis requires that sheriffs or chief correctional officers operating a county detention facility must enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE. That means that every county sheriff in the state needed to sign such an agreement this year, which they all have.
There is no requirement for municipalities to do the same, yet hundreds of police departments throughout the state have done so anyway. In the cases of Tampa and St. Petersburg, two of the largest cities in the state, those agreements were reached quietly earlier this year, without fanfare.
Now activists in the area say that they intend to persuade Tampa Police Chief Lee Bercaw and St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway to cancel such agreements.
“In order to foster public trust and a positive relationship with the community, we ask you to cancel this heartless, inefficient 287(g) agreement before further harm is done,” read the form letters that attendees at the Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg were asked to send on Saturday to Bercaw and Holloway, as well as Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch. The letters were accessed through a QR code listed on pamphlets distributed by organizers at the event.
Threats to be removed from office
Addressing the crowd, activist Karla Correa showed a picture of Florida Attorney James Uthmeier, who has threatened to remove city council members who have shown inclination not to sign such agreements.
“He’s saying, no, you have to do it or else I’m going to remove you from office,” said Correa, with the Tampa Bay area chapter of the Party of Socialism and Liberation.
“He is the attorney general for the state of Florida. He has a lot of power. And he’s going along with Ron DeSantis’ agenda, and we see whenever anyone tries to fight against it, again, they threaten to remove them from office. That’s what happened in Orlando. That’s what happened in Key West. That’s what happened in Fort Myers.”
The Key West City Commission voided its police department’s 287(g) after learning that their police chief had signed such an agreement without commissioners’ knowledge. After they did that, Uthmeier publicly declared that the action had made Key West a “sanctuary city,” which is banned in Florida law. Shortly thereafter, the commission reconvened and approved a new 287(g) agreement on a 4-2 vote.
A similar situation happened with the Pinellas County School District earlier this year, with the school superintendent and the school board apparently unaware that their chief of police had signed an agreement. Once that news was made public, the district backed away from the agreement.
“Did anyone know that Pinellas County schools signed a 287(g) agreement for a second?” Correa asked members of the crowd. “Because ICE shouldn’t be in schools. But you know what happened right after? There was a huge public outcry, right? Parents came out. Teachers came out. Community members who don’t even have kids came out to fight against this and to oppose it. And you know what they did? And you won’t hear DeSantis talk about this. They voided that agreement,” she said to cheers in the audience.
In addition to asking the mayors and police chiefs of the two cities to use their authority to cancel the agreements, the activists are calling on the St. Petersburg and Tampa city councils to pass resolutions condemning the 287(g) agreements. And they want the Tampa Human Rights Board to “begin an immediate and thorough investigation of Tampa PD’s 287(g) partnership.”
SPPD responds
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway provided a written statement to the Phoenix later on Saturday.
“To clarify, our department is not part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” he said. “We assist ICE only when, during the course of a lawful encounter, an individual is identified as a suspect or subject in a criminal investigation. If it is determined that the individual has an active warrant, we are legally obligated to execute that warrant, whether it’s ICE-related or not, fairly and consistently. We are not seeking, nor do we receive, funding to support ICE operations.”
Attorneys representing the state have informed a judge in a lawsuit filed by the city of South Miami regarding the confusion about the law that, in fact, municipalities in Florida are not required to sign such an agreement.
The Tampa Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pitch in to help make the Tampa Bay Journalism Project a success.
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | BlueSky
This article appears in Sept. 4-10, 2025.