OCOEE, Fla. — At the Ocoee City Commission meeting on Tuesday, city leaders and the police department joined the long list of Florida municipalities moving toward becoming compliant with the enforcement of state immigration laws.

The Ocoee City Commission unanimously approved the Memorandum of Agreement for the 287(g) Task Force between the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Ocoee Police Department.

What You Need To Know

  • Ocoee and police compartment join the other dozens of Florida municipalities moving toward being compliant with state immigration laws

  • The decision would allow for officers to receive the required 40 hours of training from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest those who may have a warrant issued by ICE

  • The Ocoee Police Department is preparing to choose one officer to represent them as they are still twenty officers understaffed

  • Chief Vincent Ogburn says the officer's duties will not change and they will not be chasing down or actively looking for anyone who may have one of those warrants

This decision will allow officers to get the required 40 hours of training by the Department of Homeland Security to help ICE arrest those who are here illegally.

“Once they’re trained, they will be able to fulfill the duties of the agreement if they happen to come into contact with an individual that meets the criteria,” said Ocoee Police Department Chief Vincent Ogburn.

As of now, that criteria would be anyone found on the list of 700,000 administrative civil arrest warrants issued by ICE.

But Ogburn says his officers will not be chasing down or actively looking for anyone who may have one of those warrants.

“If we come across anybody who have criminal charges and as a result of running them in the system, the officer finds out they have a warrant, and they will then take them to the jail and notify the jail of this warrant,” Ogburn explained.

But unlike other municipalities complying with state law, Ogburn says the department will only be able to have one officer trained.

“Right now, we’re currently staffed with maybe 95 officers, and we are short,” explained Ogburn. “So that’s why we aren’t able to put a lot of people on this task force.”

Ogburn says that after training, the officer chosen will have the power to arrest people with warrants from ICE, but the overall duties of that officer won’t change and neither will the department.

“I just want to let our citizens know that we are not going to change the way we’re doing business,” Ogburn said. “We’re going to still patrol the scenes, still do our community events and nothing is going to change with the Ocoee Police Department.”

Ogburn says they need at least 20 more officers to be fully staffed but they have not discussed how many more officers will be trained for the task force if they meet that number.

He also says that they’re still in the process of picking that one officer to represent the department in the training.