Pinellas County’s authority on human rights is exploring options to investigate Sheriff Bob Gualtieri following a ProPublica investigation that uncovered unconventional immigrant detention practices.
The report found that the jail was repeatedly booking immigrants, briefly releasing them into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, then rebooking them. This reset a 72-hour detention time limit.
At the Tuesday meeting of the county’s human rights board, Pinellas County’s League of Women Voters showed up to ask the board to look into the sheriff’s rebooking policy.
“Our concern is the care of our immigrant siblings,” said Brittany Leclair, pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Pinellas Park, addressing the board. “We’re here today to demand some answers as to why the human rights board is allowing this kind of inhumane care to happen to our neighbors.”
The board might not be able to do anything about it. During most meetings, members address discrimination and wage theft in the county. They usually only investigate on behalf of an impacted individual who files a complaint.
The board meeting is attended by representatives of many county agencies, including the tax collector, the supervisor of elections and the property appraiser. The sheriff does not have a designated representative.
County Commissioner and Board Chair René Flowers said at the meeting that she would reach out to the sheriff and consult with county lawyers to determine what authority the board has, if any.
“I will ask for a presentation from the sheriff’s office to this body … regarding the time frame by which individuals are supposed to be held,” Flowers said. “I can’t make him come, but I will extend the invitation to him.”
Anyone seeking a legal challenge against the sheriff has a tough opponent.
Gualtieri once held the dual-role of legal counsel and chief deputy for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. His legal maneuvering has landed him a position as one of the nation’s leading experts on using local police to enforce federal immigration laws.
At the start of Trump’s first term, Gualtieri proposed a novel method of detaining immigrants in county jails. He told the State Immigration Enforcement Council last year that the old documents ICE used to ask jails to detain immigrants were unenforceable. Gualtieri rose to the challenge.
In 2018, a joint report by five leading immigration and civil rights groups called the proposal “the Gualtieri Memo.” The workarounds proposed in the memo, the report said, were illegal. But Gualtieri’s proposal eventually became a model of 287(g) agreement—a formal arrangement that allows local law enforcement to take on ICE duties.
Last year, with input from Gualtieri, the state required all Florida jails to enter into this form of 287(g) agreement. If a sheriff tries to scale down his participation with ICE, he can be removed from office under a Florida law banning sanctuary policies—a law Gualtieri helped write.
Flowers did not respond to a request for comment. Gualtieri did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
After publication, ProPublica released this update:
Five days after this story was published, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office provided ProPublica with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement internal memorandum, dated Dec. 11, 2025, stating that the Pinellas County Jail “is redesignated as an over-72-hour facility, effective immediately.” The memorandum cites the reason for the jail’s redesignation as an “increased operational tempo.” Prior to publication, the sheriff’s office declined to respond to ProPublica’s question asking whether it wanted to clarify a statement its spokesperson made in July that the jail is supposed to hold ICE detainees for only up to 72 hours.
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UPDATED 09/03/2026, 10:03 a.m.: This article has been updated to reflect further information PCSO provided to ProPublica after publication.
This article appears in Aug. 27 – Sept. 02, 2026.
