MIAMI — Miami-Dade County’s jail system has agreed to drive local immigration detainees to federal detention centers — an arrangement that could include trips to the state-run facility in the Everglades branded as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

The administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava quietly signed the updated agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last month.

It requires correctional officers trained in ICE procedures through the 287(g) program to transport detainees for the federal agency. The one-page update does not include details, but a source familiar with the arrangement said Tuesday that the update requires Miami-Dade jail staff covered by the existing ICE agreement to transport detainees when ICE requests a relocation trip. A Florida law passed earlier this year requires all jails in the state to cooperate with ICE; Levine Cava signed that agreement in February, and Miami-Dade commissioners endorsed the arrangement.

Florida last month opened a detention camp on a county airfield in the Everglades to jail people for ICE while they’re awaiting deportation. The county’s Corrections Department said Tuesday it has not yet transported anyone to the former Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, the county facility that was commandeered by state authorities for construction of the temporary jail complex.

About two dozen Miami-Dade Corrections staff have been trained and approved for ICE 287(g) duties. Having trained jail staff available for transportation would determine whether the county would grant an ICE request to move a detainee, the source said.

The agreement update, signed June 18 by Miami-Dade Corrections Director Sherea Green, gives jail staff who are covered by the 287(g) arrangement the “power and authority to detain and transport … arrested aliens subject to removal to ICE-approved detention facilities.”

Alana Greer, director of the Community Justice Project in Miami, said the new language sets the stage for Miami-Dade to drive detainees to the caged cells set up at the Everglades facility.

“This empowers county staff to drive residents directly to the Everglades detention camp and other ICE deportation sites,” Greer told the Miami Herald. “No state law or federal law requires the county to do this. This is yet another instance of Mayor Levine Cava volunteering county resources for the mass deportation machine without a fight.”

A Levine Cava spokesperson, Natalia Jaramillo, said Tuesday the county had no choice but to sign the update.

The Corrections Department “signed the 287g addendum as state law requires the County to enter into a 287g agreement as well as applicable addendums,” she told the Herald.

Miami-Dade’s cooperation with ICE under President Donald Trump has been a divisive topic since 2017, when the county under then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez changed policy to have the county’s jails begin accepting detention requests from federal immigration agents.

That policy remained in effect after Levine Cava, a Democrat, succeeded Gimenez, who is now a Republican member of Congress.

The Levine Cava administration said the 287(g) update would bring no substantive change to how Miami-Dade detains people for ICE — something that only takes place when someone is booked on local charges while also being sought for deportation.

Under federal procedures, Miami-Dade jails will hold someone for an extra two business days if ICE has a detention request — known as a detainer — for them.

The updated agreement with the transportation clearance is posted on an ICE website but wasn’t announced by the county.

The last time Levine Cava made public an update to an ICE agreement, it sparked one of the most contentious moments of her five years in office.

On June 26, county commissioners were set to vote on a separate but related ICE agreement with county jails. The vote came at the request of Levine Cava, who said the update would allow Miami-Dade to collect a $50 federal stipend for every detainee held for ICE by the county. Immigration advocacy groups condemned the “Basic Ordering Agreement” between Miami-Dade and ICE as an escalation of the county helping with Trump’s mass deportation efforts and warned that public-record restrictions in the deal could make detainee names vanish from the public databases maintained by local jails. The Levine Cava administration said those claims were untrue.

Rather than go ahead with the planned vote on June 26, commissioners opted to duck the issue by authorizing Levine Cava to unilaterally sign any agreement mandated by state law, making it unnecessary for commissioners to take a public vote. They extended that authority retroactively to when the mayor had first signed the ICE agreement. While the transportation update wasn’t mentioned in the discussion, the commission vote granted Levine Cava the retroactive authority to activate the amended agreement without board approval.

When commissioners moved to scuttle the contentious planned vote on the ICE agreement at the June 26 meeting, a woman was waiting her turn to speak before the board and urge them to vote against it.

After a brief, contentious exchange with plain-clothed county deputies who provide security in the chambers, she was dragged out of the chambers and arrested.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.