Note: This is the second of three articles publishing today about the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office’s collaboration with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sweep of undocumented migrants. See the first, “At Least 205 Migrants Have Been Detained at Flagler County Jail So Far This Year as Part of ICE Sweeps.” The final article will post shortly.
How much is the Flagler County Sheriff’s participation in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s sweep of undocumented migrants costing taxpayers? The Sheriff’s Office is not saying, other than for Sheriff Staly’s assurance that local taxpayers are not bearing the burden.
“But here’s a commitment that I can publicly say to the local taxpayers,” Staly said. “I am making sure that it’s not costing the local taxpayer any money. At the end of the day, we all pay federal taxes, so at the end of the day, there’s money there, right? There’s a cost, yes. But there’s nothing that’s being taken away from local resources, local taxpayers that support the Sheriff’s Office in anything that we do as a partnership, as mandated by Florida law.”
It has been impossible to verify accounts since the Sheriff’s Office says it is barred from making them available for inspection, and ICE is not providing them. But based on ICE documents, the Sheriff’s Office’s participation in the federal program known as 287(g) is not without cost.
ICE records obtained by FlaglerLive indicate that on June 10, 2019, Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with ICE to designate some of the Sheriff’s Office’s deputies as participants in the “Warrant Service Officer Program.” That’s the program that was little used during the Biden administration. The program authorizes certified deputies to serve warrants on undocumented migrants and to “perform certain limited functions of an immigration officer within the FCSO’s jail/correctional facilities,” according to the agreement.
Notably, the Sheriff’s Office is required to cover all costs: “The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for personnel expenses, including, but not limited to, salaries and benefits, local transportation, and official issue material,” the agreement states. “ICE will provide instructors and training materials. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for the salaries and benefits, including any overtime, of all of its personnel being trained or performing duties under this MOA and of those personnel performing the regular functions of the participating FCSO personnel while they are receiving training. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office will cover the costs of all FCSO personnel’s travel, housing, and per diem affiliated with the training required for participation in this MOA.”
The Sheriff’s Office is also fully responsible for “property or personal expenses incurred by reason of death, injury, or incidents giving rise to liability.”
On Feb. 21, 2025, Staly signed an additional memorandum of agreement joining ICE’s so-called “Task Force Model,” which delegates more specific law enforcement functions of ICE agents to certified sheriff’s deputies. State law mandated that local police agencies cooperate with ICE through such agreements. According to the MOA, certified sheriff’s deputies have the authority to:
- Interrogate any “alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or remain in the United States,” and to process for immigration violations those arrested on criminal charges.
- Arrest, without warrant, any undocumented migrant “or any alien in the United States, if the officer has reason to believe the alien to be arrested is” here illegally and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.
- Arrest an undocumented migrant without warrant for alleged felonies.
- Serve and execute warrants of arrest for immigration violations, administer, seize evidence, process the undocumented and draft charging documents.
- Issue immigration detainers, maintain custody of the undocumented arrested by ICE or task force members or any other participating agency.
- Transport detainees to ICE-approved detention facilities.
As with the 2019 MOA, the Sheriff’s Office “is responsible for personnel expenses, including, but not limited to, salaries and benefits, local transportation, and official issue material used in the execution of the” sheriff’s office’s mission, the agreement states. That includes salaries, benefits and overtime, including training time. The sheriff’s office is also responsible for security equipment such as handcuffs and leg restraints. ICE pays travel and lodging expenses, plus a per diem, and it pays for all ICE-related information technology infrastructure.
The agreement contradicts an ICE “fact sheet”, which states that a local agency in the 287(g) task force program is eligible for payments that include $7,500 for equipment per participating local officer, $100,000 per vehicle, the reimbursement of salaries and benefits of participating officers and overtime reimbursements equivalent to 25 percent of the officer’s salary.
That verbiage nowhere appears in the MOA with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office. Consistency has not been an ICE hallmark.
ICE records do not so far include an agreement for jail enforcement, the third model that ICE provides for with state and local agencies. That agreement is in the works between the Sheriff’s Office and ICE, or DHS, and FlaglerLive was told by the Sheriff’s Office that its details would be made available eventually.
One such agreement ICE signed last April with the state of Florida mirrors the agreement with the Sheriff’s Office when it comes to cost: the state is responsible for all personnel costs, including benefits, overtime and equipment. The agreement is silent on the cost of feeding or medically caring for detainees.
The Sheriff’s Office is referring all questions about the detainees, including verifiable numbers and the cost of holding them at the jail, to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, with a standard answer: “This information is subject to public disclosure pursuant to provisions of applicable federal laws, regulations, and executive orders. As such, all inquiries regarding detainees should be directed to ICE.”
ICE is not forthcoming. Questions referred to the agency’s media inquiries’ email, presumably in Washington, D.C., first returned with an automatic reply by Nina Pruneda, an ICE Public Affairs Officer for the Central and South Texas district, saying she was out until March 15, and to refer all questions to “our ICE Media Box at [email protected],” where the original questions had been sent. A resend on March 9 drew no further answer. FlaglerLive has requested to visit the county jail to examine detainees’ conditions. The Sheriff’s Office has referred the request to ICE, which has gone unanswered.
“Unfortunately, federal law precludes a lot of what I can say, and I’m not going to violate federal law,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in an interview with FlaglerLive. “What I will say is that, unlike some agencies around the country, our agency will always work with our federal and state and local partners.” Staly said the agency has been a 287(g) jail facility since the Biden administration, though it was used to that purpose only once during that period.
“This is nothing new. In Flagler County, we do have to comply with some new Florida laws that mandate local law enforcement to work with the federal partners and to have 287(g) Task Force deputies,” Staly said. “That’s the only real change since 2017, is the mandate by the legislature that we have 287(g) Task Force officers on our law enforcement side, and we have what we thought is an appropriate number to do that.”
Asked about reimbursements from the federal government for the resources the Sheriff’s Office is expensing on ICE-related duties, operations and detentions, Staly said: “That’s controlled by the federal government, so you have to really reach out to the federal government’s PIO, to DHS PIO for that.” He was referring to the Department of Homeland Security’s public information officer. Contact with DHS’s media office proved fruitless.
Gina says
Hardworking people arrested for minor misdemeanors–the ones who build homes, raise our roofs, etc, as our infrastructure rots causing death and chaos on our roads. Arerst those who are responsible for our deadly roads and officials who knew about
our failed wastewater system and our crumbling utility building, who did and said nothing for decades. But let’s move a failed veiled firing county administrator to another county position who costs us millions in lawsuits. And let’s put the
other friends of Petito, her recommended puppets, in that same position who are all a part of the cowardliness and nepotism of attorneys, developers and other officials who run the county.
Jan says
Don’t these words/phrases concern you: “alleged,” “reason to believe,” “believe to be,” “arrest without warrant”
R.S. says
Yes, indeed; I’d expect the sheriff to follow due process on anyone in jail. If Staly–like T-Rump–follows his own morality rather than the law, I think we’d have an extremely good reason to look elsewhere for the next sheriff of this County. Today, the undocumented immigrant; tomorrow the rest of the anti-Trumpublicans in this County.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
Since tRump has a history of stiffing people on money owed I wouldn’t hold your breath for them to pay one cent in reimbursement. Palm Coast should look real hard the next time the Sheriff’s Office comes with hat in hand begging for additional monies on top of what’s needed for Palm Coast coverage.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Our proud peacock sheriff, strutt your feathers… Everyone here suffers from TDS!
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
The only “TDS” I’ve seen is people like Dennis and their tRump Devotion Syndrome, all for the Pedophile In Chief no matter what.
Raymond Royer says
My understanding is the State of Florida has been stiffed by our current Federal Administration not reimbursing for the Tent City in South Florida.
That was 100s of millions that could have been spent on infrastructure projects in Florida.
Jas says
This illegal immigrant argument is old, tired, and has no legal legs upon which to stand. Can you not see what the end game is? The costs to round up and deport persons who illegally cross a sovereign border, and work within those borders illegally, is far less expensive than full support with free money, housing, medical, and schools…year after year.
I care not about your opposing comments or agendas. Illegal immigrants have broken both US and International Law. Arrest and deport them ALL!
WTG FCSO!
R.S. says
Jas, you clearly have absolute zero knowledge of International Law. Here, for your benefit: “Article 12–No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. Article 13–Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Look it up: it’s part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that was agreed to by the General Assembly of the UN. OK! So, the US did not ratify it nor does it recognize the International Criminal Court at the Hague. That makes the US an outlier of the civilized nations of this world–on par with Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)–Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic–Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia–People’s Republic of Poland–Union of South Africa–Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Several of these do not exist anymore, and Saudi Arabia objects to religious freedom that the UDHR guarantees. But then, you may prefer to be in league with the nations that have gone down meanwhile.
Wet willie says
How much are the undocumented immigrants costing tax payers?
Land of no turn signals says says
With ALL the money wasted in government this what your worried about? PLEASE!!!
Atwp says
If Ice detain and deport Dennis, how would he feel about it?