With Doral embroiled in rancorous controversy over its immigration enforcement agreement with the feds — and recent immigration raids in the city — Democrats on Tuesday made the city a mid-term election focus, demanding it sever ties with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Because 70% of Doral’s population are immigrants, mostly Venezuelans, the so-called 287(g) agreement the city approved last year, to assist ICE with detaining migrants the agency says are here illegally, has made many residents angry and fearful.
A growing number are hesitant to venture out of their homes for fear of being arrested and deported, and local businesses say their sales have recently dropped by as much as 70%.
That has put Republican Mayor Christi Fraga and Doral's city council — which approved the 287(g) deal unanimously in April 2025 — on the defensive this month.
Fraga is now trying to distance herself from President Donald Trump's sweeping migrant deportation campaign, insisting she can't prevent masked ICE agents from stalking Doral's streets.
But outside Doral's city hall, Democratic leaders and candidates — describing Doral as a "ghost town" now — called on Fraga and the city council to at least rescind the 287(g) agreement, which requires local law enforcement to be deputized to aid ICE and federal immigration enforcement.
"People are afraid to [go to] work, they're afraid to seek medical care," said Miami attorney Nicole Locklin, the Democratic candidate challenging incumbent Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart in Florida's 26th congressional district, which includes Doral.
"The entire community is living in fear ... This has gone too far."
Doral businesses like the Parrillada Familiar da Silva restaurant have begun speaking out about the fear. The Venezuelan eatery this month has begun providing food aid to local migrant families who have stopped going to work.
"We are in solidarity with those living through this situation," Parrillada's Venezuelan-American owner, Cloraldo Leal, said in a statement.
READ MORE: Salazar: Venezuelan regime should not halt earthquake aid, Trump should halt deportations
Trump took a record share of Latino votes for a Republican presidential candidate — and won that bloc in Miami-Dade County — in the 2024 election. But polls suggest he's forfeiting those gains thanks to issues like affordability and immigration.
Last week, incumbent Republican Miami Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents Florida's heavily Latino 27th District, released a video slamming Trump's harsh immigration policies and saying Latino voters feel "betrayed."
Adelys Ferro, a Democrat and head of the nonprofit Venezuelan American Caucus, said last weekend’s shooting of a Venezuelan migrant in Texas by ICER agents has only heightened the anxiety in Doral.
“Does something like that have to happen here in Doral?" she asked at Tuesday's gathering.
"How bad does it have to get?”
Ferro and others at the press conference emphasized the law does not require cities in Florida to sign on to 287(g) agreements — as Fraga seemed to suggest when Doral approved its 287(g) last year.
"Our lawsuit showed the way," said South Miami Mayor Javier Fernandez, whose city last year forced Florida attorneys to acknowledge that state statute cannot force municipalities that don't have county jails to enter into 287(g) agreements, as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had earlier asserted.
Annette Taddeo, the Democratic candidate for the state's Chief Financial Officer, said Fraga and Doral's city council "are now crying crocodile tears after they were told from the beginning that what they were doing was inhumane."
Fraga told CBS4 News last week she does not agree "with the way things are [being] handled" by ICE in her city.
But former Democratic Miami Congressman Joe Garcia said Fraga is saying that now "because the chickens have come home to roost after her city voted to participate in this undignified cruelty."
The deportation angst in Doral has worsened since Venezuela suffered two back-to-back earthquakes in June. Even Republicans, including Miami Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, have said the Trump administration should reconsider deporting Venezuelan migrants back to the county after that catastrophe, which killed thousands.
Doral voted for President Trump in the 2024 election.
