With Doral embroiled in rancorous controversy over its immigration agreement with the feds — and recent immigration raids in the city — Democrats on Tuesday made the city a mid-term election focus.
Because 70% of Doral’s population are immigrants, mostly Venezuelans, the so-called 287(g) agreement the city approved last year to assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement has made many residents angry and fearful.
Many 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 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 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 aid ICE and other immigration agencies.
"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 have begun speaking out about the fear. The Venezuelan restaurant 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.
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Adelys Ferro, a Democrat and head of the nonprofit Venezuelan American Caucus, said last weekend’s shooting of a Venezuelan migrant in Texas by immigration 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 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.
