Tampa Mayor Jane Castor addressing reporters in Tampa on Oct. 7, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
The Tampa Police Department has revised its policies on immigration enforcement in response to a demand Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued last week. Uthmeier had accused the department of having “sanctuary policies” and threatened to remove Mayor Jane Castor from office unless the city backed down.
“The city of Tampa has no intention of violating state or federal law,” Castor wrote in a letter to Uthmeier on Monday. “We will continue to use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law, as well as state law.”
In his letter to Castor last week, Uthmeier wrote that his office had become aware of TPD’s policies connected to 287(g) immigration enforcement agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
TPD “ostensibly supports these policies because they do not want illegal aliens to be concerned with immigration consequences by cooperating with law enforcement,” Uthmeier wrote. But, he added, “we want illegal aliens to fear immigration consequences to the extent that they are here unlawfully.”
The Tampa mayor’s letter came with links to the TPD’s now former policies regarding immigration enforcement and its revised policies.
Two policies on immigration have been removed.
One said Tampa police officers were “not required to share information with federal immigration authorities regarding victims or witnesses of a crime, nor shall they inquire into or investigate the immigration status of cooperative victims, witnesses, or in individuals requesting police services.”
The second said officers were prohibited from engaging in broad immigration enforcement actions, such as workplace raids, traffic checkpoints, and area saturation sweeps.
That language has now been replaced by saying that, pursuant to Florida Statute 908.104 (7), an officer is not required to provide a federal immigration agency with information related to a victim or a witness to a criminal offense “if the victim or witness is necessary to the investigation or prosecution of a crime and such crime occurred in the U.S., and the victim or witness timely and in good faith responds to the entity or agency’s request for information and cooperates in the investigation or prosecution of such offense.”
It references Florida Statute 908.104 (9), which says state law “does not authorize a law enforcement agency to detain an alien unlawfully present in the United States pursuant to an immigration detainer solely because the alien witnessed or reported a crime or was a victim of a criminal offense.”
The revised TPD policy maintains a prohibition on biased policing. Enforcement actions “shall never be initiated, influenced, or based upon an individual’s race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or any other legally protected characteristic.”
Uthmeier had warned Mayor Castor that the TPD’s immigration policies “must be reversed immediately, or there will be consequences.” That language was similar to the rhetoric he sent to elected officials in places like Key West, Fort Myers, and Orange County last year contending their local immigration stances were tantamount to “sanctuary policies,” which are illegal in Florida.