ICE directive tests Florida's Sunshine Laws: report

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]really interesting uh reporting out this week that an ICE directive is really putting Florida's sunshine laws and open government um transparency to the test.

[00:00:11]Uh and so I'm pleased to uh bring in the author of this piece who is joining us uh live now uh via Zoom. This is Mon'nique Madden, an independent journalist and the founder of the Two Can Be True newsletter. Mon'nique, we appreciate your time today. Thanks so much for joining us here on Fox35 News Plus.

[00:00:30]>> Thank you for having me.

[00:00:31]>> So, Mon'nique, interesting reporting. I know this is something you've been looking into uh for a while and investigating and you got your hands on uh a memo um that that talks about how uh what ICE and how ICE wants local governments to handle requests about the immigration detention efforts. Talk to us about what you learned uh from that memo.

[00:00:54]>> Right. So in this directive, ICE is telling all local law enforcement agencies that includes police departments, sheriff's offices, jails that are participants of the 287G program. Um that ICE is in control of all local documents, records, statistics, and that they cannot be released without federal approval. Um, now this is this memo is being, you know, it puts ice between the public and the records held by local police. So, it's raising several questions.

[00:01:27]>> Yeah. Because here in Florida, we know those those 287g agreements, you know, are are in place literally all across the state. And so, this is a a big impact, especially here in the Sunshine State, >> right? And it's significant because these are not just federal records.

[00:01:44]We're talking about local local police, local agencies, officers, uh local police decisions, um and ultimately local taxpayers. So, yes, >> what does IC say about why they need to take such a hard line on this or why they they believe this is information that um should not be released, >> right? So, if you take a look at the reporting, I actually published the actual directive. So you can take a look. The public can take a look themselves. But the important thing here is that ICE is actually not explaining themselves. They're not saying why. They actually did not respond to any request for a comment for this story. So I am interested in understanding why. Um that said, they are demanding that all local agencies in Florida and in Texas um and if not in other states already that they do not speak to the media. um about this program.

[00:02:44]>> How does this kind of um bring, you know, some tension to Florida's open government um laws, the sunshine laws that are pretty broad in in this state.

[00:02:56]So, what are are this raises some interesting kind of legal questions here?

[00:03:02]>> It does. And many experts are signing the sounding the alarm. They are asking, well, is this going to be be put to the test? It's clearly already being put to the test, but will it stand up in court if it ever gets there? And does it does it have legal grounds? I think that's a question that we will continue to explore as I continue to report.

[00:03:25]>> Um, I know you've also talked with uh a number of immigration attorneys and and folks who have been impacted by these ICE raids.

[00:03:35]I know we've heard about the difficulties even in uh in them getting some information uh that they are are trying to get a hold of for you know their their legal proceedings right so I mean the attorneys are telling me that this kind of secrecy deepens fear um because families are already trying to understand what's happening during traffic stops arrests transfers to ICE custody um I reported not long ago that families are drafting wills because they're afraid to die in immigration custody or in you know immigration enforcement. Um I do talk about that in in the story.

[00:04:17]And so what is the the process then that ICE wants this uh the release of information to go through according to this directive and and and how is that kind of different from the way things would work for a normal kind of local case just for folks you know who may not be familiar with this process.

[00:04:36]>> Right. So uh for folks who think it this doesn't apply to them because they're not members of the media they're they're very wrong. This really does impact the public. So the way that it works, the pipeline would be the journalists request information from their media department, their public information or public affairs department. Um, and they would submit what we call an official records request. Now, by Florida law, there are certain standards, certain time frames, um, certain provisions that we have to adhere to, and then there's a certain amount of time that they have to respond to these requests. Now, usually when it has to do with police records, for example, I'll just put one example out there. How many officers have been trained or have been certified by ICE to conduct immigration enforcement on the streets on the local in local neighborhoods. Um, they used to be able to answer that. They used to be able to say, you know what, Mon'nique, we have six officers that that were certified this week. Um, and then just release that information. But now there's somewhat of a longer process where ICE needs to clear that information. So that police department would have to forward it to DHS and they would have to give it the green light. Now in one case in one instance they actually responded saying we will not be answering questions by the media because of the partial government shutdown. So that is also really interesting because there is a lot of money flowing into the expansion of these programs across the country but that seems to not be applicable to the answering of the questions about such programs. So you know there is an opacity here >> and do we know how these um agencies who have received this memo are are handling this?

[00:06:32]>> Right. it's already affecting um some police departments and of course I have placed requests in there to understand how um more and more agencies are handling this but in what in one case in one example there's a small town that the city attorney said we seem to have cover um when in doubt give me a call but do not respond to any public records requests do not answer any emails just acknowledge receipt and we have to send this to ICE we have to send this to DHS because this is what we're being told to do. So, it's really putting these these uh municipalities, these departments in between the fed federal government and local public records laws.

[00:07:15]>> So, what's uh what happens next?

[00:07:18]>> That's a good question. I will continue reporting on this, but um I think that this this has raised alarms for, you know, press freedom, first amendment rights um and transparency into this program that is rapidly expanding. In one instance, we have one police department down here in South Florida that increased its um immigration certified officers by more than 800% in less than a few months. So, we know that it's growing rapidly. Now, we just we we need the public's help to better investigate this. if you um have any information, any tips, if you want to come forward uh confidentially, you know, as journalists, we're always here to um see how we can better investigate these processes even when there are bigger hurdles.

[00:08:03]>> Well, Monnique Madden, founder of the two can be true newsletter, we appreciate you joining us here on Fox 35 News Plus today and sharing your reporting with us.

[00:08:13]>> Thank you so much. And I just want to say thank you to the Florida Trip who partnered with me on this investigation.

[00:08:18]>> Yeah. Where can folks uh learn more?

[00:08:21]>> Yes, they can go to the Florida.org um or they can go to my website monique omaden.com.

[00:08:28]>> All right, Mon'nique, we appreciate your time today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so