Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings gave the U.S. Marshals Service a deadline by letter Friday, saying it has until March 13th to resolve the shortfall in its reimbursement rate for housing immigrant detainees.
Otherwise, Demings' letter said, the county would consider its options, including possibly terminating its Intergovernmental Services Agreement.
It's under the IGSA that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents bring detainees to the county jail and temporarily house them there.
County officials say the IGSA has a reimbursement rate of $88 a day for federal inmates, but the actual cost is $180 a day. The corrections department sought to revisit those terms back in August -- but has made little progress.
The Marshals Service has responded each time to the county, but "has not offered a reimbursement rate that's reasonable to our requests," Demings wrote.
"At the same time, Orange County continues to bear the operational and financial burden of housing federal inmates under our IGSA," he said.
"I request your immediate action to fairly resolve our contract negotiations by March 13, 2026," Demings said. Otherwise, the county will terminate the negotiations and consider its options.
"As you are aware, one of the options that the county may consider will be to terminate our IGSA."
The agreement — which predates the Trump administration's immigration crackdown — has been point of contention for county, with many members of the public raising concerns about it at commission meetings and rallies.
At a meeting Tuesday, commissioners wrestled with issues related to the IGSA and the county's legal requirement under state law to cooperate with ICE. They are seeking to understand the limits of that "best efforts" standard and are looking into a possible lawsuit to clarify the issue.
At the meeting, Demings mentioned setting a deadline to resolve the reimbursement rate.
More people are being held at the Orange County Jail as immigrant detainees.
Last month, the jail averaged 361 detainees per day. That included a daily average of 142 being held for ICE with no local criminal charges.
Demings previously notified ICE that, as of March 1st, Orange County would cap the number of those being held without charges at 66 men and 64 women. In a previous letter, sent Feb. 3, Demings also said the jail will stop letting ICE rebook detainees in order to hold them without charges for longer than 72 hours.
