Dozens of activists gathered this Wednesday in front of the Doral City Hall with around 170 signatures from residents demanding the end of the 287(g) agreement that the city has with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to reported by 7News Miami. The aim was to present the signatures during the City Council meeting scheduled for 5 PM that same day.
The protest, organized by the ACLU of Florida and the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), places Mayor Christi Fraga at the center of the controversy. She is a Cuban-American and the first woman to lead Doral since the city's founding in 2003, currently caught between the pressures from Governor Ron DeSantis and the growing fears of a predominantly immigrant community.
Sam Lester, representative of the ACLU of Florida, directly dismantled the argument that the city has no room to maneuver: "Despite the misleading statements from state officials, they are free to walk away from this agreement, and the governor, despite his threats, does not have the authority to remove municipal officials for doing so."
El acuerdo 287(g) y las tensiones entre comunidades locales e ICE forman parte de un panorama migratorio en constante cambio. Sigue todas las novedades en nuestra sección de
Jeanette Infante, an attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, added a significant legal argument: Florida Statute 908.11 only requires sheriffs and heads of corrections operating county detention centers to enter into 287(g) agreements, and "the City of Doral is not, unequivocally, one of those entities."
Thomas Kennedy, policy analyst at FLIC, acknowledged that there was a meeting with Fraga days prior, but deemed it insufficient: "We appreciate the conversation; it was in good faith, but ultimately it has not produced any concrete results for the community. We are here to reiterate the consequences and the exit scenarios of this harmful agreement."
Fraga responded to 7News, assuring that residents are safe and protected under her leadership, and revealed that her team sent a letter to the State Attorney's Office seeking changes to the agreement. The mayor also emphasized that police practices have not fundamentally changed: "There is factual information directly on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's website that shows our police have not collaborated and, in fact, we have not completed the training. We do not want to see families in our community harmed, especially those who are following the process."
The pressure on Fraga is intensifying because the mayor admitted in September, in an interview with Telemundo 51, that she signed the agreement under direct pressure from DeSantis and the Florida Attorney General, who warned of possible dismissals and the loss of credentials for the police department.
The impact on daily life in Doral is palpable. During the public comments before the Council, one speaker described the situation: "Family businesses are reporting sales declines of up to 70% because fearful residents refuse to leave their homes. Several restaurant owners have noted a massive staff shortage after employees fled or stayed home out of fear of being detained." Resident Liz Rebecca Alarcón summed it up starkly: "I've never seen the city so desolate, so empty, and the residents so scared."
Doral, with about 76,490 inhabitants, of which nearly 70% were born outside of the United States and approximately 27,000 are of Venezuelan origin, has seen fear of ICE empty its streets and sink its businesses since arrests escalated from three in December 2025 to 17 in July 2026.
Doral is not the only city in South Florida facing this pressure. Last month, activists gathered in front of Miami City Hall to demand that Mayor Eileen Higgins rescind a similar agreement, which was approved by the Miami Commission by a vote of three to two in June 2025.
At the close of this edition, no voting or decision by the Doral City Council on agreement 287(g) had been reported during this Wednesday's session.
Related videos:
Filed under: