This week on NewsNight, an in-depth look at the concerns of hospitality workers in Florida amid the changing immigration enforcement landscape.

Plus, a look at plans for a regulated black bear hunting season in Florida and next steps in the developmen of a permanent Pulse Memorial.

News night starts now.

Hello, I'm Steve Mort.

Welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in Central Florida and how they shape our community.

First, tonight, the U Supreme Court this week cleared the way for the Trump administration to deport people to third countries.

It's the latest High Court decision to side with the White House.

Recently, the justices gave the Department of Homeland Security the green light to end humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Florida's home to the largest number of TPS recipients in the country.

The end to deportation protections for nationals of certain countries is already impacting the tourism industry.

Dozens of Venezuelans employed by Disney were recently told they could no longer work there.

Hundreds of thousands more Venezuelans could lose their TPS status in September if it isn't extended by the federal government.

And advocates say those effects could be even broader.

Krystel Knowles has been talking to unions that represent many migrant hospitality workers.

>>Oscar Tineo has spent the past six years becoming a familiar face at Epcot, working as a cook and building a new life in the US.

>>We run away from the Venezuelan regime.

>>Oscar was granted asylum a few years ag and is now a union shop steward.

>>Right now... >> But the future for his family and coworkers is uncertain, and he fears some may face deportation if the Trump administration terminates the 2021 TPS designation for Venezuela.

>>Most of the people think we are a permanent resident already.

We are okay, but we are not because I have family, close, like the mother of my wife, my mother in law and my sister in law.

They have TPS of 2021 and that's a reality that we cannot hide.

>>Julie Jerkovich Loreth with United Food and Commercial Workers Union 1625, says the union represents thousands of Disney World cast members.

Some have already lost TPS and many others will lose protections this year.

>>I always assure them that, you know America has a place for them and I know how much many of them love working at Disney.

And here in Central Florida.

You know they're such an important part of our industry and tourism and hospitality.

>>We calculate between 15% and 20% of their workforce at Disney at this point is from Venezuela.

So that's a lot of people.

If we are talkin then we are 70,000 cast members.

20% is around 14,000.

And I understand it is not easy to find 14,000 people to replace all these cast member that work at Disney.

>>Tineo compares the way ICE is carrying out enforcement to the repression he left behind in Venezuela.

>>Of course, we feel really, really bad and some of them feel depressed because we feel that it is not fair.

And when you see then they go to construction or they go to the farm and start hunting people.

If they say, then when Maduro went against most of us, they are doing the same.

And for me, that's bad.

>>Oscar Tineo closing that report from Krystel Knowles.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down and joining us in the studio this week for the first time Joe Byrnes from Central Florida Public Media.

You live in Ocala and you've driven all the way down here.

So I really appreciate you making the trip to see us.

>>You bet, Steve.

>>Thanks for coming in, Joe.

Stephanie Rodriguez coming back to the program from WKMG News 6.

Good to see you, Stephanie.

>>Nice to see you, too, Steve.

>>And coming back to the program, Massiel Leyva from Spectrum News 13.

>>Thank you for having me.

>>Thanks for coming in today, guys.

Let's start on the, differences between the way the Trump administration and the Biden administration view the concept of temporary protection.

Stephanie, there is a big gap there.

>>Absolutely.

I mean, under the Biden administration, they really expanded the number of people who were eligible for TPS.

It was during his time in office that Venezuelan were given that designation because of political turmoil under Nicolás Maduro.

And it is a designation that does need to be extended every 18 months.

That's per policy.

So before the Biden administration left the White House, then, Secretary, Alejandro Mayorka did extend it for Venezuelans.

So they were really, really protecting TPS and tryin to get as many people under it as they could.

And then we saw a 180 turn when the Trump administration came in.

We've seen Homelan Security vacate TPS for several countries.

Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua.

And we've seen, of course, a lot of, opposition to that.

We've seen a lawsuit that went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to stop those, TPS vacancies that they've done since going into office.

But we did see the U.S. Supreme Court side with the Trump administration, which has left hundreds of thousands of people at risk of deportation.

And they also lost their work permits, like we just saw with Disney.

A lot of people are unable to work because when they have TPS, that allows them to have work permits and then also not have the fear of deportation.

>>I want to talk a little bit more about that separate, Biden era humanitarian, humanitarian, parole program for nationals of Cuba Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

This month, the Trump administration began sending termination notices to parolees.

Let's hear a couple of voices on that, starting with Eduardo Gamarra, a political scientist at Florida International University, will then hear from Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocate for lower levels of immigration.

Take a listen.

>>This is an enormous number of people that it affects, right?

And because we're talking about TPS and we're also talkin about the humanitarian parole.

So so if you combine both of those, there's you're you're talking about half a million people that have been affected.

I have never see this population here in Miami.

Right?

With the kind of fear that they express now.

Right?

We have students who don't want to come to the university because they, because we now have essentially, FIU, our FIU police are deputized ICE agents, right?

People who don't want to, you know, go out because of the fear that their, their legal status is in such limbo.

>>The parole programs that the Biden administration instituted were illegal.

Parole.

The parole and program can't even go together.

It's supposed to be, kind of one off, exceptional circumstances thing.

In other words, somebody you need somebody to testify at a trial, and he's excludable he's not allowed to come into the United States because he's a gang member.

You can parole him in, escort him to the trial.

He gives his testimony, you take him back.

That' the kind of thing parole is for.

Establishing a parole program is, on its face, illegal.

And so obviously, the, the administration had the far authorization to end it.

>>Mark Krikoria from the Center for Immigration Studies.

Massiel let me come to you on this one.

When you factor in that SCOTUS decision on parole, in addition to, TPS, what is the impact in Florida?

>>Well, they're expecting to see, Steve, a huge impact because we're talking about 530,000 people who came here to this country under this parole program.

We're talking about Cuba Nicaragua, Venezuela and Haiti.

And out of those 530,000, we see 80% of those people are here in Florida, and they're working in industries that are >>Thats a large percentage.

>> huge, yes, amount of people and we're talking about industrie like construction, hospitality.

and they're expecting that this could have a big impact on the economy of the state.

>>I mean, beyond parole and TPS, Joe, it seems that immigration enforcement has ramped up in Central Florida pretty significantly over recent weeks.

>>Yes, indeed.

That, and I think there's a lot of concern, especially about the people who are being arrested, that the rhetoric, of course, was these are criminals, these are criminal aliens.

But what we're seeing is a lot of stories for people who are not.

Are business owners, you know and the, the family from Apopka went in for an appointment and, the husband is detained and sent off to Texas and deported to Guatemala., and the mom eventually is also deported on a ticket she bought, to Guatemala as well.

And so you see a lot of that.

>>What have you been seeing Stephanie, from your reporting, have we been seeing a significant uptick?

>>We have.

And as you mentioned, you know, it's who's being detained.

We've seen several cases here in Central Florida of people who have already started a citizenship case.

They they're in the process of trying to obtain U.S. citizenship and they're being detained.

I covered a case in Osceola County.

A woman was detained for allegedly driving without a valid driver's license.

She's arrested.

She's able to get an attorney, and they get those charges dropped right away because she is a legal immigrant.

She does have a valid, driver's license, but the charges are dropped, and she is still detained by ICE after the charges are dropped and she's sen to a detention center in Texas.

She spent two and a half months there trying to prove that she has an asylum case in process.

She's from Colombia, unable to really talk to her family in a room with 10 to 12 other people.

Eventually, they're able to prove she is a legal immigrant and that she is here lawfully doing the process the right way, as some people would say.

And she's brought back to Central Florida.

And we've seen a similar case in Kissimmee as well.

A man was visiting the Gran Canyon, and he was from Brazil.

And he's also in the process of getting citizenship.

He's detained while sightseeing, and he's in a detention center in Arizona.

So a lot of questions about who's being detained and how you can prove you are a legal immigrant.

>>Meanwhile, the census administration is rolling out plans to rapidly build a detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz at the Miami-Dade County owned airstrip in the Big Cypress National Preserve.

Here's part of a video put ou by the Florida Attorney General.

>>People get out.

There's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons.

Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide within just 30 to 60 days after we begin construction.

It could be up and running and could house as man as a thousand criminal aliens.

This is presents a great opportunity for the state of Florida to work with Miami Dad and Collier County's Alligator.

Alcatraz.

We're ready to go.

>>James Uthmeier there.

In that video posted on X.

The state used emergency powers, right, Joe to seize that land.

this week.

What more do we know about those Alligator Alcatraz plans and potentially, I think, a second site in the north of the state.

>>So they're looking to house 1000, immigrants at, Alligator Alcatraz a they call it, in tents, mostly.

I mean, there'll be some portable buildings and stuff, but the people would be in tents.

It makes you wonde what the conditions will be like in the Everglades.

Famous for its mosquitoes and its heat.

The, the other site that you're talking about is at Camp Blanding which is up near Jacksonville.

And that's a National Guard, training center.

>>Yeah.

And we should note, of course, environmentalists are pretty concerned as well about the location that in the Everglades.

Democrats, of course, say Alligator Alcatraz is a land grab.

Orlando.

Congressman Maxwell Frost this week or the idea a cruel spectacle.

Just last week, he said he'd file a bill aimed at increasing transparency and accountability at detention facilities.

>>Being undocumented in this country is not a crime.

That's right, a civil offense.

No human deserves to be caged, brutalized, or disappeared for it.

And no one is safe in this country.

We've heard about U.S. citizens being wrongfully detained under Florida's extreme immigration enforcement policies, and this is what's happening across this country.

It's a culture of fear and of chaos.

>>Congressman Frost there, Massiel let me come to you on this one.

What exactly is Congressma Frost pushing for in this bill?

You've covered this.

>>Yes.

I was actually there at the press conference when he introduced it, what they called the Stop Unlawful Detention and End Mistreatment Act.

He called it the SUDEM Act.

This means that they want to see more accountability and transparency in those ICE detention facilities and isolation centers.

They want to know who is being detained, why the reasoning behind it, and also to make sure that the prisons and these centers as well are releasing, some information like demographic ages, names, because they're saying that some of the families do not have access to know where their loved ones are.

So that's exactly what the bill that he introduced is pushing for.

>>Well, let's, talk abou some of the detentions locally.

Advocacy groups have have criticized those particularly in Orange County.

But what have the mayor, and the county commission had to say about them?

What we've seen, we've talked about the ramped up numbers of detentions in our area.

What are the officials saying?

>>Well, the Orange County mayor is reluctantly, I would say, complying because I don't think he has any choice.

So he doesn't see tha he has any choice but to comply.

One of the big concerns that people raised is, is the idea that people are disappearing into the Orange County jail so they come in, could be on a, a local charge o they could have a traffic stop right, and end up being detained, for ICE.

And in the process, they're booked.

And then all of a sudden they disappear from the jail.

They're not.

What has happened is they have been transferred to ICE, detained ICE custody at the jail, and the county doesn't provide any information about them at that point.

So the families, the lawyers say they're being disappeared.

It's part of the process they're going through.

And you could sort of say Orange County is kind of caught in this situation.

But they also have, what's it called, Intergovernmental Service agreement.

It goes back to the 80s, with, with ICE or with the federal governmen so that they can actually house, detainees from all over the state not not just out of this county.

And they're doing that.

>>Well, part of that concern at the county level might be the economic consequences of, mass deportations in Florida.

Let's talk a little bit more about that.

First of all, let's listen to what Mark Krikorian from the center for Immigratio Studies told me in his pushback to the assertion that the policy could devastate industrie such as tourism and agriculture.

>>With regard to ag there' an unlimited ag worker program, the H-2a program.

It's just that farmers don't want to bother with it because it involves pay requirements and transportation and housing and what have you.

But more and more of them are using it and have been using it over a number of years.

Its uses exploded.

So for ag the argument just doesn't it doesn't hold water at all.

For other industries, hospitality, meatpacking, what have you.

Yeah.

It's not going to be pleasant.

And if all illegal labor disappeared tomorrow kind of in some magical way that would really be disruptive.

It's not the way things work.

This is a process, not an event.

And as a process, the market will adjust.

>>Mark Krikorian there, there have been conflicting messages, haven't there, Stephanie out of the Trump administration about the deportations o workers in certain industries, what is the latest?

We know on that?

>>Absolutely.

I mean, when we thin back to the campaign, you know, President Trump ran on mas deportation, mass deportation.

We saw that everywhere.

Now people are being removed.

And he's going back and saying on social media, well we don't want to hurt the farms.

We can't let the farms go out of business.

You know, he's saying that on social media, but he's still allowing workplace rates to happen at farms, also at hotels, also at restaurants.

You know, the USDA reports that roughly half of farmworkers here in the United States have lack legal immigration status.

So President Trump is saying by posting on social media, we can't let the farms g out of business, that he's aware of the contribution that they make to America.

They make sure that we have fruits and vegetables on the shelves.

They make sure the hotel workers that our beds are cleaned.

When we come back to the room, that we have a waiter at the restaurant.

But then the mass deportation efforts continue.

In the workplace, rate are continued to be ramped up.

>>Do we know how vulnerable, Joe, Florida is to the idea of massive deportations when it comes to the economy?

>>It looks like Florida is very vulnerable.

I mean when you look at the industries, that are so importan in Florida, Massiel was kind of mentioning these earlier, agriculture, hospitality, construction.

I mean, what can be more important in Florida and Central Florida than those industries?

And, undocumented workers make up a hefty percentage of those workers.

>>What have you been seeing, Massiel, you've been covering this as well.

>>Absolutely, the same thing we've seen.

I've been able to speak with some farm workers, in different areas of Volusia County.

And they mentioned they're scared.

They're seeing more peopl that simply do not come to work.

They they're just in fear.

And, for the owners of this, for example, ferneries, they're saying tha they're losing their workforce.

They they don't know how they can find more people to work.

And now the people that they had, they're not coming in to work.

>>Certainly the fern business is a big business in places like Pierson.

So we'll keep an eye on this as we go forward.

Be sure to find us on social media.

Meanwhile, we're at WUCF TV, on Facebook and Instagram and also find us on X at News Night WUCF.

Okay, next tonight, the Pulse Nightclub building is set to be demolished later this year.

Recently, survivors and the families of those who died in the mass shooting got a chance to look inside the building for the first time since the tragedy.

It comes as the city of Orlando secure funding and prepares final plans for a permanent memorial at the site in SoDo.

Nine years on, the Pulse site for some is frozen in time.

Along with family members and survivors, journalists were recently allowed to tour inside the building but without taking photographs.

The City of Orlando purchase the site in 2023 for $2 million, with a view to finally completing a permanent memoria to the 49 people who died there.

At the tim the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, the city is selectin a contractor to develop a plan based on a conceptual design agreed to by the Pulse Memorial Committee.

The current building is expected to be demolished later this year, and it's hoped a permanent memorial will be completed by 2027.

Certainly, a lot of people anticipating that a permanent memorial being put in place.

Joe, what was the reason for the walk of that site?

What was the thinking behind that?

>>Well, Donna Wyche talked about the reason when she's the engagemen coordinator for, for the city, she talked about the reason for it.

And basically the reason is the families demanded it.

They needed it.

So they're going to tear this building down.

They've never been in there.

They've never seen the place where their loved ones, breathed their last breath.

And now you're going to destroy it.

So it was really, really important.

Donna Wyche described it as not closure, right?

But a part of the journey of grief.

And for for some of those people, it was extremely important, very emotional and, you know, just really glad the city did that.

>>Well, I think all your outlets have been talking to people who made that tour.

What did you guys hear?

Stephanie?

>>One of my managers, actually, was what part of the media that was able to go in and he kind of describe what it was like for him.

He was there on scene reporting the night that it happened, and he said it was very sobering to see, you know, the remnants of what was supposed to be an amazing place where people could gather without judgment and to know what happened there and to be able to be with, you know, see the families and see that, as he mentioned, it's not closure, but it does help at least move the process forward and kind of try to accept that this is going to be no more.

Pulse will not exist anymore.

>>Well, what is next then?

In the process of demolishing this building and putting up a new, permanent, permanent memorial do we have a time frame there?

>>Well, we do, right no we know that the next step, now that the visits have concluded, will be that there will be the city will be demolishing the actual sit so they can make space for that, permanent memorial to honor the lives of the 49 people who passed away that day in that shooting.

But we also know that the city is now collaborating with the county as well.

Recently, Orange County announced that they're going to be contributing to that.

So we're looking at maybe end of 202 to see the permanent memorial.

>>How does that cost look?

>>You know, the city is estimating about $12 millio between design and construction.

And they said tha they will put forth 7.5 million.

And then the Orange County is also collaborating.

They said they'll put up to 5 million, which does give them some wiggle wiggle room if they are to go over that essential that initial $12 million mark.

But it will fall on the county, on the city and, and the county now.

Not fall on them, But they're willing to pay it to memorialize the 49 people that perished there.

>>You can find a link t the memorial conceptual design on our website at wucf.org/newsnight.

Okay.

Florida's black bear population is once again a the center of a heated debate.

The state's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is moving forward with plans for a regulated bear hunting season in December.

Supporters call it population control.

Critics say it's unnecessary and dangerous.

FWC says plans for a bear hunt include strict permit limits and designated hunting zones.

Official say the goal is to manage bear populations and reduc human bear conflicts, promising the hunt will be scientifically guided and closely monitored.

But conservation groups argue the data doesn't support a hunt pointing to stable bear numbers and calling for non-lethal solutions.

Instead, they fear the move could reverse years of progress in protecting the species.

The commission is expected to finalize the rules later this year.

Okay, Joe, this is a story that you've covered a lot up there in Ocala.

What are the main sort of ecological and population management arguments, I guess, that are being used to justify the reintroduction of a bear hunt?

>>Well, one of the really interesting comment that I heard from a FWC official at the hearing in Ocala was basically that bears are a game species.

In other words, you're supposed to hunt them and they have a sustainable population to where you could hunt them every year.

I think for a lot of people that shock you, they don't think of bears as a game species.

But that's apparently is how the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission looked at them.

So I think, you know, you can see it's for is for population control for the bears.

Okay.

And one of the interesting things is that the people in Florid may not have really realized it, but at this last election, they actually approved that they vote for the right to fish and hunt.

But in that amendment, it also says that hunting is the preferred species management approach.

So, I find that interesting.

A lot of people wouldn't have thought that.

One of the interesting points I wanted to point out is that in Central Florida, actually there are only 18 bear permits this year.

So the other places that are well over 100 total of 187.

But in Central Florid we have so few because basically bears are getting killed already on the roads.

People are hitting bears on a regular basis.

>>Yeah that's true.

What's the timetable going going forward on this?

And what is sort of the the plans in terms of how this hunt will take place and who gets a permit?

>>Right, so this is happening in 23 days in December, 187 bears.

You enter a lottery paying $5 to enter a lotter to get a permit to kill a bear.

It's different from 2015 whe basically they opened the hunt and over 300 bears were killed in two days and it was a mess and people were outraged.

This is a much more controlled hunt.

>>Yeah.

News six has been looking at this issue as well, right?

I mean, the rebound that we've seen in recent year and in the black bear numbers, has been seen as a major victory for conservationists.

>>Absolutely.

It's estimated that right now in Florida, we have about 4000 black bears.

And if we go back to just the 1970s there was only several hundred.

So they've the population has just really grown since then.

>>So actually over the decades.

>>Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

But you know, people who are against this, bear hunt just kind of say that it's a trophy hunt.

It's not really to mitigate population.

It's just to hang a bear on your , for your wall.

There has been some squeamishness, hasn't there, Joe, about some of the rules, being able to hunt at feedin stations and things like that.

There are some specifics of this bear hunt that are causing conservationists and animal right people to be squeamish about it.

>>Yeah, absolutely.

You've got this very strong group of people pushing for hunting and their hunting rights, and you've got a group of people very concerned about the impact on the bear population.

But, the feeding stations issue is a big deal.

The, you know, you the bear comes to the station there and you can the state likes it because they're saying, well, you can pick the big bear.

You know, you can pick the large male bear that you want to hunt versus the female bea that might get killed otherwise.

But that's that's controversial, that you're essentially catching the bear when it' coming into a vulnerable place.

Dogs hunting with dogs is not this year, but in future years, you'll be able to use dogs to hunt bears.

That's also very controversial.

>>Well, it will be interesting to see how the bear hunt plays out, of course, when hunting begins in December.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Joe Byrnes from Central Florida Public Media.

Stephanie Rodriguez, WKMG News 6, Massiel Leyva from Spectrum News 13.

Good and interesting conversation.

Thanks so much for coming in, guys.

Newsnight will be taking a break for Capitol Fourth next Friday, but we will be back the following Friday night at 830 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at News Night, take a and have a great week.