Alice Herman/Suncoast Searchlight

After the Sarasota County School Board voted 3–2 to reaffirm its cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, uncertainty remains over how immigration enforcement would actually be carried out on school campuses. The resolution, approved despite hours of emotional public opposition, does not spell out what documentation agents would need to enter schools, whether judicial warrants would be required for non-public areas, or who would make those decisions.

As the federal government intensifies its immigration crackdown, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has emerged as one of the Suncoast’s most active partners with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In recent months, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman’s deputies have patrolled the Everglades immigration jail known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and shuttled immigrants between detention facilities in Florida, earning more than $280,000 in state funding for the work. Meanwhile, the number of ICE detainers — which keep people up to 48 hours past their release date for possible detention and deportation — have quadrupled this past year inside the already crowded county jail.