>>This week on NewsNight, local leaders face pressur from immigration advocates over state requirements to compl with federal enforcement agents.

Plus, a look at new centra Florida data on homelessness as communities struggle with solutions to the region' unsheltered population.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top storie and issues in Central Florida and how they shap our community.

First, tonight, the continuing debate over immigration.

While the fight over the Trump administration's deportation efforts plays out in the courts, a federal judge placed a recently enacte Florida immigration law on hold.

That law, which makes entering the state as a "unauthorized alien" a first degree misdemeanor, has already resulted in several arrests, including that of a U.S. citizen.

Meanwhile, local governments are navigating another recent state requirement for law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal ICE operations.

In March, the Orlando Police Department joined other law enforcement agencies around the state in signing a 287 G agreement with ICE.

Every Florida county and many cities as well, have entered into arrangements whereby ICE agents train local and state officers in immigration enforcement so they can work closely with federal authorities.

But recent meeting of both the Orlando City Council and the Orange County Commission, immigratio advocates have voiced concern.

>>Orange County cannot be complicit in separating families, violating due process and putting immigrant in danger.

This agreement with ICE doesn' make our community safer.

It makes people afraid.

>>In Orlando earlier this month, Mayor Dyer responded by voicing support for the city's Trust Act, passed in 2018, that prevents city employees from asking about the immigration statu of crime victims and witnesses.

That sparked Florid Attorney General James Uthmeier to describe the Trust Act as unlawful, in violation of Florida's 2019 Anti Sanctuary city policy and to threaten penalties.

In a response, Mayor Dyer did not mention the Trust Act, but wrote "Neither I nor the Orlando Police Department have any intention of violating federa or state law."

>>Good afternoon.

>>The Orlando Sentinel's reported that the Trust Act is under legal review by city attorneys, but remains in place for now.

>>We are the ones... >>Orlando Commissioner Tony Ortiz says he thinks the Trust Act does not conflict with state law.

>>I reall hope that the attorney general read our Trust Act because I think it is a good piece.

They thought that the Trust Ac was like opposing whatever actions the government, the state level, at the federal level, are doing.

And it was not so.

The Trust Act is nothing but an expansion of the bias free policy of the Orlando Police Department.

>>Commissioner Ortiz, there.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studi this week, Ryan Gillespie covers local government for the Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks for coming in as always, Ryan.

>>Happy to be here.

>>Good to see you.

Randi Hildreth from Fox 35.

Nice to see you today, Randi.

Thanks for coming in.

And for the first time, joining the fray, Donovan Myrie from WKMG News 6.

Good to see you today, Donovan.

>>Thank you for having me.

>>Thanks so much for coming in today.

We should not we are recording this program, by the way, on Thursday morning so things can change by air time.

You can find a link to Ryan's reporting on the review of Orlando's Trust Act on our website.

wucf.org/newsnigh along the bottom of your screen.

Ryan, let me start with yo on the Trust Act, if we can.

You talked with Mayor Dyer right following the back and forth with the attorney general on this issue.

What's your understanding of where the city stands now on this?

>>I mean, essentiall nothing has changed, right?

Like they passed this polic in 2018, which basically bans police really any city employee.

So you can imagine, you know, code enforcement or anything like that from asking somebody's immigration statu if they're not breaking a law.

The purpose of it was, you know, they want people to report crime and to be comfortable talking to police if they're witnesses of crim without fears of being deported.

So that policy has bee in place since 2018, and for all intents and purposes, nothing has changed.

Their lawyers are looking at it after this back and forth with the state AG, James Uthmeier.

They're making sure that everything is legal.

But, you know, for the last seven years, they've believed that this is legal.

And for all intents and purposes, they believe it still is, as far as I know.

>>Right, I mean, the attorney general said, you know, that he was pleased tha the mayor had reversed course.

But you kind of alluded to that there.

I mean, did the mayor really reverse course given that this law remains in place?

I mean we heard that from Commissioner Ortiz saying he doesn't recko that this particular, ordinance conflict with state law at all.

>>Right.

And so I was a little confused by that part of the back and forth, because if you read Mayor Dyer's response, nowhere there does he say that anything about the Trust Act.

Trust act, actually, it's not even in the letter, the word-- >>In his response.

>>The words "trust" and "act" do not appear in his letter.

But I quoted the mayor a week prior before this back and forth, talkin about their dealings with ICE.

And he said at the time, as I quoted him, we will follow state and federal law.

That is what he said in his response a week later to the state AG.

He believes, and they believe for the last seven years, that Trust Act does not violate state and federal law.

They're looking at it again, just to be sure.

But yeah, nothing is nothing has really changed at this point.

>>Gotcha.

Let's just step back a little bit.

Donovan, News 6 is obviously covered this, but I was kind of interested to remind our viewers about the reasoning for passing the Trus Act in the first place in 2018.

>>You know, it's interesting, I was looking back at this and 2018 seems so long ago, seven years ago.

Remember, we were in the middl of Trump's first presidency and this was, hey I want to build a wall.

And Mexico needs to pay for it.

I remember that was over and over and over again.

And this was the city's way o saying we are including people.

We are diversified.

You know, we are not building a wall and basically asking you, you know what is your immigration status?

You know, if you came in to complain about your tras or something like that.

>>Yeah.

The local response to the Trump administration's moves on immigration in the first term was certainly different from what we're seeing now, and it got a pretty warm reception at the time, right?

From immigration advocate when the Trust Act was passed.

>>Yeah, certainly it was.

If there was this big effort that spanned months to get the city to do something and at first they kind of were a little skeptical o what they could and couldn't do.

>>Yeah.

>>This group called the Orlando Trust Coalition, which was a group of immigration advocates, really got together with Commissioner Toni Ortiz, who we just heard from, to put this together.

Mind you, Toni Ortiz is one of two Republicans on that board, he's a retired law enforcement officer.

And really, his interest in this was when he was a street cop.

He was run into this all the time is, you know, immigrant were often the victims of crime, and they were often the hardest crimes to solve because they were eithe scared to report it generally, and if they did report it or if they witnessed it happening to somebody else, they didn't want to talk t police because you don't know.

You know, the common person doesn't necessarily know the maybe the difference between an Orlando polic officer and a sheriff's officer, a sheriff's officer and an ICE official, you know, you don't know.

>>They both say police on them.

>>Yeah, exactly.

And you don't really know mayb where the power start and stop.

>>Yeah.

Well, let's talk about those 287G agreements.

I'll come to you in a moment.

Randi, Florida law, now requires local and state cooperation with federal immigratio authorities.

The Orange County Commission approved an agreement last month.

Here's Orange County Mayo Jerry Demings at that meeting.

Take a listen.

>>I asked the sheriff a questio about how many persons did he think, in Orange County, potentially would be impacted?

These are persons, who are somehow involved with, immigration and customs officials.

And the sheriff's response was they are estimating 50,000 to 75,000 people that are subject to some type of ICE intervention.

They have about 10,000 signed orders of removal in Orange County.

So what he's saying there is there are ten, approximately 10,000 persons in Orange County who have signed removals that ICE is in search of to remove them from the U.S.. >>Mayor Jerry Demings there.

Randi let me come to you on this one.

The Orange County Commission approved that agreement with Ice, in March.

But not without significant disagreement.

Right.

You covered that here.

What are the main fault lines on on the commission there?

>>Yeah, there was a lot of discussion amongst commissioners, and there was also a lot of public comment about this.

So ultimately not unanimous 5 to 2.

And but even some of the commissioners who voted in favor of this memo said, I felt like I had to do thi because my job was on the line.

>>Yeah.

>>But let's talk about those two no votes.

They came from district one, Commissioner Nicole Wilson and distric five Commissioner Kelly Semrad.

And in their conversation in their pushback about this, they brought up some concerns about when we have someone in custody, is that person going to get due process?

Commissioner Wilson told me when I did a one on one interview that she felt like these are additional job requirements for these correctional officers, because now they will have the ability to serve search warrants.

And who's going to pay for this extra our responsibility within this role.

Kelly Semrad, in her concerns very similar to Commissioner Wilson' but she talked a lot about what can Orange County do if we're going to agree to this memo.

And so she challenged the, board to come up with some parameters about what would this look lik in terms of implementation here?

She wanted to make sure that Orange County at least had parameters for how long a person is in custody before a family member is notified to make sure that people are able to keep track of their loved ones.

>>And that due process question has been something that we've seen playing out on the on the national level as well.

Ryan, your colleague Steve Hudak has been covering the Orange County discussions on immigration, I wonder what the, county says it's expecting in terms of cooperation with ICE.

>>Yeah.

I mean, they certainly, you know, this week, mayor Jerry Demings said that it's pretty clear that ICE activity in Orange County is is ramping up.

>>Ramping up.

>>The the jail chief said this week that there that they had 20 arrests for ICE inmates on Monday.

He expected 20 on Tuesday.

You know, through the like last week, basically there had been something like 800 people on on ICE detainers, which is much more than last year.

So the county right now is it was signed this 287G agreement with the sheriff's office, excuse me.

And so they go through thi training, it takes a little bit.

I believe they're pretty close to being done.

If they aren't done already.

And then that allows them, if requested by ICE, to participate in some of their, their arrests and acting basically as a deputized ICE agency.

Every county in the state of Florida has signed this agreement as required by law and by at this point, most cities have Orlando, most notably and basically every other city in our area of of any size has also signed an agreement.

So yeah, you know, here in a couple of months, almost every law enforcement agency in the state of Florida is going to be able to to be deputized on behalf of ICE.

>>Before we move on, we should mention that law that I referred to at the top of the program, Randi, which makes it a crime to enter Florida as an undocumented immigrant.

The courts are weighing in on that.

What is the status at the moment of the state's ability to enforce that statute right now?

>>There has been a lot of back and forth about this, and we know that, U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams issued an order to stop that.

This was early in April, April 4th.

But it appears that some law and some law enforcement agencies have not listene to that as recently as Friday.

The judge had to essentially remind everyone that this is what I said and this is what you cannot do.

Now, with that context, there's also been back and forth with, state officials.

The Florida attorney general initially issued a memo to law enforcement and said, you know, we need to stop doing this, per the judge.

But as recently as Wednesday reversed course and has now told law enforcement agencies that they can enforce this immigration law-- >>At least there's nothing that maybe he can do to prevent that from-- >>Exactly.

And so we could potentially see more arrests, even though the judges said not to do this.

And as you mentioned, there's a hearing coming up April 29th where this will again be hashed out.

>>Yeah.

Be interesting to see what the judge says on that.

On the federal level, Orlando Congressman Maxwell Frost and other House Democrats traveled to El Salvado this week amid the controversy over the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The chair of the House Oversigh Committee, James Comer, denied a request for an official congressional delegation so no public funds could be used to pay for it.

Frost addressed that afte returning to Orlando on Tuesday.

>>This is the partisanshi a lot of people don't like in this country.

We requested an official Codel because we knew tha the government there could use us not going officially a a reason for us not to see him.

We did what you're supposed to do.

We sent a very respectful letter to Comer actually saying this should be a bipartisan trip.

Let's go together.

Even if you disagree with us.

And not only did he denied it, deny it, but I encourage people to read the letter.

He sent a very unprofessional, inappropriate letter that probably was written b the administration themselves.

And sent that to us instead, which shows there's no good faith here.

This is a joke to them.

>>Congressman Frost there.

We've put that letter from Oversight Committee Chair Comer to the Democrats regarding the tri on our website, you can read it for yourself at wucf.org/newsnigh along the bottom of your screen.

Donovan, let me come to yo first on this one.

News 6 has been watching that trip to El Salvador.

What was the reaso given for denying that funding?

>>These things happen all the time.

This one made headlines because Comer was looking to basically make a statement to take a stand.

A lot of people, I should say there are some people in politics in Washington that really don't like Maxwell Frost.

Okay.

As he- >>Pretty high profile Democrat.

>>You know, and very young, a very young, high profile Democrat, and they don't lik the attention that he's gotten.

Okay.

And this is a way of, you know, shutting down that young whippersnapper, I guess you could say.

But I think really a lot of this was basically to sho that unified Republic in front.

And, you know, he said it before.

This is now partisan politics.

And partisan politics is creeping into so much of what we do that used to just happen on a day to day basis that we didn't really hear about.

Now it's, hey, I'm going to make a, you know, take a stand, make a statement.

And, you know, an what was the headline after it?

Maxwell Frost claps back.

>>Yeah.

>>At that.

You know, at that particular statement.

And then basically they went on their own.

>>An of course Republicans would say that they're deporting people that shouldn't be here.

To protect the public.

You'll find a link to Florida' immigration law on entering the stat without documents on our website.

wucf.org/newsnight.

Meanwhile you can find us on social media.

We're at WUCF TV, on Facebook and Instagram and also find us @NewsNightWUCF on X.

Next tonight, we're checking in on the homelessness issue in Central Florida, with more data expected soon on the number of unhoused peopl in our region.

Earlie this month, the Point In Time data for Orange, Osceol and Seminole counties showed the number of people experiencing homelessness remain flat year on year.

But advocates say Florida's recent camping ban makes finding unsheltered people harder and that the real number is likely much higher.

Meanwhile, data from the Point In Time count for Brevard is set to be released in May.

As Krystel Knowles reports.

>>Okay, I'm Michelle, I'll try and keep an eye on you and stuff.

>>For the past eight years.

Michelle Green hits the streets of Cocoa and Merritt Island listening to the stories of Brevard County's homeles during the Point In Time count.

In the wake of Florida's camping ban, Green says the figures coming out next month will likely show a small decrease.

>>I interviewed less but as I know from doing outreach on like a weekly basis I know there is more than there were last year, so I feel like we ar probably undercounted this year.

>>The PIT count is a snapshot of the homeless population, both sheltered and unsheltered on a specific date in January.

One of the questions on the list: How did you end up on the streets?

>>Most of us are one crisis away from being in the same situation either.

One year w asked, what was the first reason you became homeless and whether it was a medical issue, a family change, employment, you know, different situations that just, ended them into to homeless and then how hard it is to get out.

>>According to the Brevar Homeless Coalition, the count was don at the end of January by more than 150 volunteer throughout the county.

After eight years getting to know the homeless community in her area, Green understands how fragile financial stability can be, especially for those on a fixed income.

>>I Got Tuna- >>She says the soaring insurance rates are only compounding the problem.

>>I was talking to my husband about, you know, what happens when we're on Social Security with we just got another bump on homeowner's insurance.

We won't be able.

We wanted to die here.

I don't think we'll be able to.

>>The Point In Time count numbers are reported each year to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and are used to apply for federal funding to support local programs.

>>Krystel Knowles reporting.

Krystel' story is part of a collaborative initiative of independent local news outlets working towards a more informed and engaged Central Florida.

Donovan, News is part of that collaborative.

First off, what are we seeing i the numbers for Metro Orlando?

>>Well, the Orlando number went up a whopping five people.

From 2,776 to 2,781.

The folks who do the PIT count in Orlando, that is the Homeless Services Network, HSN, they have done a lot to help people get, off the streets, to put them in shelters, to put them in temporary housing, to put them in permanent housing.

But Martha Are who is the CEO o the Homeless Services Network, she said, and I wrote this down to make sure I got it right.

There are places where we've historically been able to find people, and they were not there this year.

The camping ban is having an effect.

Basically people get move and used to be I can find you.

I kind of know where you are.

These are people who work with homeless people all the time.

They're not finding those people because those people are scared to be arrested.

We've had, a series of arrests in, the Orlando, Orange County area.

I think Seminole County has arrested just one person.

Is it still just one?

You know, Winter Park has gone, forward and dedicated two of their officers to homeless outreach.

It's kind of like this mishmash of everybody's reacting, but there's really no cohesive plan to.

>>Yeah, this data came out since we last talked, Ryan.

We heard Michele Green there in Brevard just now describe the likelihood of an undercount when their data comes out next month.

What do you read into the data so far that you've looked out in Orange, Osceola, Seminole?

>>Sure.

So I think it's important to note any this this is done annually, right?

This count in any year even pre camping ban, it was alway deemed an undercount because if you jus think of the point of if you were somebod who is homeless and unsheltered, generally the point of it is you're trying to evade detection, right?

Like a lot of people are in the woods.

This is maybe pushing more people into the woods or deeper into the woods.

So what we've seen is we saw slight decrease in Orange and Seminole County, and we saw an increase in Osceola County.

A bit of context for that.

If we go back to last year the a woman named Olga Gonzalez, who was then the mayor of Kissimmee, runs a charity where a bunch of unsheltered people and homeless people gather for services for whatever reason, last year, she did not allow volunteers from the Point In Time coun to count people at her charity.

That is some context.

She, of course, denies that.

We have numerous sources who say otherwise.

So so there's a bit of context for that in Osceola.

I think everybody expected there to be a steeper increase this year.

That did not happen.

By I think it's fair to assume that there's an undercount.

>>Well, let's talk about the shelter issue.

Randi, you've looke at the homelessness issue, too.

What have advocates told you in your reporting, especially about that lack of shelter that we keep experiencing?

>>Yeah.

So even if we're only seeing slight fluctuations year to year with homeless numbers when we go back to the pandemic to now, we have seen a significant increase in the number of people who don't have a home.

And as we see, has we seen that number go up, we have not seen an increas in bed capacity at shelter.

So right now they're not a lo of places for people to go.

And cities and counties are navigating this.

They have the legal obligation to take care of this.

But it is also expensive to build a shelter or even expand a shelter.

It is time consuming.

This is not something that you can do, you know, say in March you're going to do this and it is in place by the end of the month.

And so they are finding some challenges with that.

There are some, agencies that ar working with cities and counties to create some creative options to address that.

Orlando's working with the Christian Service Center to get this, what's called the 407 connect bus in place up and running.

And it is an option that is a project they're moving forward with.

And it has gotten things going very quickly.

It was approved I believe, at the end of March.

I just talked with the agency and they are targeting July 15th as availability for this.

And it's essentially converting two Greyhound busses, putting beds on the busses.

And so it will pick people up and give them a place to go overnight, and they will take the to the Christian Service Center.

They will work with a caseworker to try to get them access to the resources, that they need to get on their feet.

The positive is that this is a shelter option for people, but there has been some criticism and pushback because these Greyhound busses will be able to accommodate 40 people.

And that is, you know, just very slowly chipping away at a bigger issue.

>>Yeah.

There was a community meetin at the Samaritan Resource Center on Thursday in East Orange County.

That's after we recorded this discussion.

Talk about solutions to the homelessness crisis.

Ryan you've covered the difficulties of creating shelter solutions, and you and I have talked about that a lot here on the program, particularly after that location in SoDo was rejected by the city.

Are there any other potential solutions in the pipeline?

>>I mean, not to the scale of what this region needs is I mean, if we use last year's math, this region needed roughly a thousand more shelter beds than it has.

I think it's fair to say that number is higher now, 1,100 - 1,200 something like that.

The county has sai that they are looking at sites in East and West Orange County, but they've also been looking at sites in East and West Orange Count for the better part of a year.

And we haven't had a plan come forward.

This past week there was a hearing from this group called, I believe it's Kaleo Ministries, in East Orange County at the Colonial Drive and 417 area to build this shelter.

That one also seems maybe not likely to move forward for a number of reasons, one of them being neighborhood pushback.

There's also some concerns that this is a facility that was shut down by the fire marshal because of fire safety violations.

They had something like 38 code enforcement violations over the years that they didn't solve and racked up millions of dollars in fines.

So the county has concerns there for a number of reasons.

One of them being, is this going to be a good partner in this fight?

So it is remarkably difficult to build shelter space.

But also, I'm not quite sur how many local elected officials have have the stomach to, to pursue it, you know, outside of the city, in the county, city of Orlando, in the county.

There hasn't really been much movement on this.

>>But what about that public buy-in question when it comes to creating more shelter?

News 6 has been asking Central Florida residents how they view the homelessness issue.

What are you guys been hearing?

>>We heard a lot of not in my neighborhood.

And and that's tough.

It is.

It is very tough.

We saw this down and SoD where, you know, this was set, the people of SoDo were very upset that this happened somewhat behind the scenes, that it was sprung upon them.

And it was I have not seen a community rally like that around a particular subject in a long time, and there was significant pushback.

I was getting calls from people I haven't spoken to in years.

Hey, what can I do about this?

What do you know about this?

Do you know about this?

We're slowly gathering, things and comments from people.

I got a letter the other day, actually, just last night, of a woman.

And it seems that the big complaint is none of this is run well.

But as you know, all of us can tell you it's the best it can be for right now.

As we go forward, this is basically going to be something that's going to be with u for years and years and years.

>>Yeah.

I think hearing from the public is a is an important part of that.

And we're asking that question online too.

Would you be comfortable with a shelter opening in your neighborhood, and if so, under what circumstances?

Let us know your feelings about the homelessness issue in Central Florida.

We have a survey up on our website to gather the views of the community over the next few weeks on this important issue.

You'll find it at wucf.org/newsnight, but that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Ryan Gillespie from the Orlando Sentinel.

Randi Hildreth Fox 35, Donovan Myrie, great debut, from WKMG News 6.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

And all of us here at NewsNight.

Take care and have a great week.