Eight of the candidates competing for the Congressional District 13 seat held by Republican Anna Paulina Luna at the Dunedin Public Library on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
DUNEDIN — In 2020, Democrats in Florida complained they were unfairly accused by Republicans of wanting to defund the police after some high-profile progressive Democratic lawmakers and activists around the country did make such proclamations following the death of George Floyd.
Now, some of the Democrats hoping to oust Republican incumbent Anna Paulina Luna from her seat in Pinellas County’s 13th Congressional District in November are directly calling for defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the agency’s tactics during Donald Trump’s second administration, including the killing of two American citizens in January in Minneapolis.
“We should abolish ICE,” said Earle Ford, a U.S. Army veteran, former state prosecutor, and IRS employee making his first bid for political office during a candidate forum in Pinellas County last week. “It can no longer constitutionally, ethically, or morally fulfill its duties.”
He added: “We’ve had immigration before. And we need immigration enforcement, but ICE is not the way.”
“We have to ask ourselves, is ICE even necessary?” asked Pinellas County history teacher and activist Brandt Robinson. “There were six times as many ICE agents in Minneapolis than there were professionally trained law enforcement officials, who could have done what ICE has been doing, right? (Minneapolis Police Department policy does not allow officers to participate in immigration enforcement).
“We need to arrest and indict and prosecute every one of those ICE workers right now, be it DHS, FBI, ICE, whatever their role is, because they know what they’re doing is wrong and unconstitutional,” said Karla Kemp, a sustainability consultant. “ICE has never been run right. We need to eliminate it or reform it.”
Not all of the candidates said they wanted to get rid of the agency.
“I don’t have an answer, because immigration’s been a major problem for the longest time, but what we’re doing now is not the way,” said Jeff Moore, who owns a custom T-shirt business.
Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Leela Gray did not attend the Dunedin candidate forum, but did provide this statement to the Phoenix after this article was posted regarding her stance on ICE.
“ICE has a legitimate mission to enforce our laws, secure the borders and removing violent criminals,” she said. “The execution of that mission has been unaccountable to the taxpayers about how their operations are being conducted, the use of force and conditions in detention facilities. Congress has a constitutional responsibility to oversee how agencies operate. What we are seeing play out now is a failure of Congressional leadership.
“We must insist on obedience to the Constitution and due process law,” Gray added. “The ends do not justify the means, and that’s an important lesson we learned as officers in the Army. There are rules in place to protect people and property from armed agents of the government, and I insist those rules be obeyed. We can enforce immigration laws, secure our border, and still uphold our constitutional values. That is not a contradiction. That is the standard.”
Congressional Democrats stand firm in negotiations
Grassroots opposition to the agency perhaps indicates why congressional Democrats feel emboldened to condition their support for funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on having ICE adopt reforms (such as no masked agents, no roving sweeps, and no arrests in churches or schools).
The failure of Congress to reach an agreement has led to chaos at many U.S. airports due to a shortage of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at security checkpoints as they have gone without paychecks for over a month. Those TSA agents were finally paid Monday after President Trump signed an order redirecting federal funds already earmarked for DHS to pay TSA workers.
“Elected Democrats in Congress are standing their ground on reasonable reforms for ICE in part because polling shows their constituents are intolerant of ICE’s policies and in part because they know the call to defund ICE is radical rather than electable,” said Tara Newsom, a professor at St. Petersburg College.
“The calls for defunding the police during the Black Lives Matter movement informed this strategy. Candidates who understand this will have a better chance of connecting with voters, including the much-coveted switch-swing voters, who are needed to win.”
The “Defund the Police” tag was hurled as a slur by Florida Republicans against Democrats in the 2020 and 2022 congressional elections, whether legitimately or not.
Regarding the debate in Congress about ICE, however, Florida Democratic members don’t sound like they’re willing to back down any time soon.
“We’re not going to vote for a bill that is going to fund an agency that is completely out of control, where we have people dying on the streets. And, again, that there’s havoc being done in our communities. So, we’re standing up we’re standing 10 toes down,” Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost told Fox 35 in Orlando last week.
“We believe it’s the right thing to fund TSA. To fund FEMA. But we’re not funding ICE until we get what we want to ensure that people are safe in this country.”
Rep. Luna has publicly voiced strong support for ICE.
“ICE has been demonized by radicals on the Left, but the truth is they are hard working Americans doing a job like you and me,” she said on X earlier this month.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has listed Luna’s Congressional District 13 seat as one of four Florida “2026 Districts in Play” (along with Cory Mills in CD 7, Laurel Lee in CD 15, and Maria Salazar in CD 27) but this once-swing district has proven elusive for Democrats after it was redistricted by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ own congressional map in 2022.
Luna flipped the seat from blue to red in 2022 by 8 points, and then defeated Democrat Whitney Fox in 2024 by 10 points, illustrating the district’s and Pinellas County’s swing to the right. Since then, Luna has become more of a national presence as a MAGA Republican, including an appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher in late March.
This story was updated to include Leela Gray’s comments about ICE. The story originally posted her comments from a previous news article. After the story was posted, Gray provided a direct response to the Phoenix.