- Alachua County BOCC passed a resolution expressing concerns about immigration enforcement's community impacts while complying with Florida law.
- The resolution warns that discriminatory law enforcement can harm public trust and community stability but avoids naming ICE specifically.
- Officials acknowledged potential federal funding risks, like HUD grants, but deemed the resolution's community support worth the risk.
The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) balanced community outcry and values with political consequences at its regular Tuesday morning meeting before voting unanimously to approve a resolution that expressed concerns regarding the community impacts of immigration-related enforcement activities.
The commission, its attorney and the resolution all clearly stated that Alachua County wants to abide by Florida law and is not trying to set up a sanctuary city. Instead, the resolution addresses support for local law enforcement duties and expresses its expectation that those duties happen in a nondiscriminatory and nondestructive manner.
The resolution said that type of law enforcement, especially based on profiling, can “undermine public confidence, deter cooperation with local government and law enforcement, and disrupt community stability.” The resolution fails to mention U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by name but largely focuses on immigration enforcement.
Despite the disclaimers, the county’s action could still have consequences, with officials mentioning funding impacts from federal grants because of the resolution (attached at the end of the story).
Commissioner Anna Prizzia said federal funding loss for the sheriff’s office or other potential cuts are speculative. She said the resolution only has a small risk of incurring blowback and added that the risk is worth taking as elected officials following through for their community.
“I think that our attorneys have done a really good job of working on a resolution that walks the letter of the law and makes sure that we’re doing what we’re required to do, and at the same time, does what our residents are asking of us, which is our job as elected officials, to make a statement standing in solidarity with a community that’s facing a lot of fear . . ..” Prizzia said.
Alachua County Attorney Sylvia Torres highlighted that the resolution is not a sanctuary city policy. But she said the state could take issue. The most likely form would be a notice from the attorney general.
“There’s a history of the attorney general sending out letters that say that what you’ve done is not within your authority or that it is malfeasance or misfeasance in office,” Torres said.
For over a year, community members have staged protests in Alachua County and Gainesville concerning ICE practices and potential detention facilities.
Public commenters and local groups (Rural Women’s Health Project and Gainesville Immigrant Neighborhood Inclusion Initiative) started asking local commissions to pass resolutions opposing enforcement practices—modeled from an Orange County resolution from March 2026.
The county tasked its staff to review the resolution sent to it and delay any implementation before a certain date per Sheriff Chad Scott’s request. Jacob Torner, vice president with the Continuum of Care that organizes Alachua County’s homelessness response, emailed the county in July and said the resolution could put U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funding in jeopardy.
“If the County adopts a resolution consistent with what has been requested at recent public meetings regarding generally lawful immigration enforcement, I have concerns that HUD and the federal government could view Alachua County less favorably in the award of critical grants upon which our community relies,” Torner wrote.
At the meeting, community members spoke in support of the resolution as commissioners debated whether or not to move forward.
Ethan Maia de Needell, immigrant programs manager for the Rural Women’s Health Project, said the resolution sprang from rumors of an ICE detention facility in Alachua County and a Gainesville ICE office. He said the resolution worked its way slowly while members of the community heard silence about how to deal with the new reality of law enforcement practices.
“While the resolution itself does not have the power to change the arrest practices or the federal government’s immigration enforcement agenda, we as the community expect our leaders to lead by example and draw a clear line in the sand as to what is and is not acceptable,” Maia de Needell said.
Chair Ken Cornell said one can support immigrants, want the highest professionalism in law enforcement and still not be in favor of the resolution.
“I think you can have the opinion of supporting immigrants and still believe that this resolution actually may be the wrong thing,” Cornell said. “So you can hold those opinions, and I’ve heard from a number of folks that also support immigrants that have asked us not to do this.”
Cornell said the resolution is a statement of Alachua County’s character as a community and cannot be a tool to change federal immigration law. He said the county also doesn’t need a resolution for its commissioners to verbally support immigrants day after day.
But he supported the resolution, saying he hadn’t planned to originally.
Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler questioned if this type of resolution belonged on the county level.
“We really can’t impact what’s being dictated to us from the state,” she said. “Is it our responsibility, or is it our state reps and our federal reps?”
“It’s all the above. It’s all the above,” Prizzia responded.
Prizzia made the motion to pass the resolution but asked for a few changes.
First, she asked that language around arrest practices change from “continue in such a way” to “occur in such a way.” Second, she asked that the board remove “agency policy” from section 5.1 in order to ask for masks to not be worn except when law allows it.
Commissioner Chuck Chestnut seconded the motion for discussion, and the resolution ended up passing unanimously, with Wheeler agreeing to give a united front.