MIAMI (AP) — As Florida law enforcement agencies work with federal immigration officials, family members and immigrants' rights advocates worry that people will disappear into county jail systems despite the state's expansive public record laws.
Miami-Dade officials said during a Thursday commission meeting that they are committed to transparency and will continue to follow state laws regarding the release of information about inmates. But one section of an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement designates all records and information created under the agreement as federal records, and some observers say ICE would have the final say on what information is made public, including whether a person is even in custody.
That could be a huge problem, said William Mann, an attorney with the Community Justice Project.
“I think the concerns that many folks have would be that they (county officials) would use this language that’s in this basic ordering agreement ... to prevent loved ones, family members, friends, advocates and journalists from accessing information,” Mann said. “Meaning that they would disappear into the Miami-Dade system if they were technically an ICE prisoner.”
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of ICE, told the Associated Press via email that any allegations that detainees do not have due process are false.
“Further, all detainees are provided ample opportunity to communicate with their attorneys and family members,” McLaughlin said.
She said the easiest way to locate someone in custody is through the ICE detainee locator.
Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, local and state officials must take a much more aggressive role in supporting federal immigration enforcement, which has ramped up since President Donald Trump’s return to office in January.
A law 2022 law expanded the state's ban on so-called sanctuary policies and required agencies that operate county detention facilities to enter into agreements with ICE that empower local officers to identify and process “removable aliens” in their jails.
Another measure signed into law this year requires officials responsible for overseeing local or state law enforcement to use their “best efforts” to support federal immigration enforcement. Upon the request of a federal agency, county detention centers are also required to provide a list of “all inmates” and “any information” about each one's immigration status.
“Today, the Florida Legislature has passed the strongest legislation to combat illegal immigration of any state in the entire country,” DeSantis said earlier this year. “We are ahead of the curve on ending the illegal immigration crisis.”
Local elected officials who initially balked at signing cooperation agreements with ICE have been threatened by the state attorney general with removal from office.
At Thursday's Miami-Dade commission meeting, the board was scheduled to vote on new provisions for the county's existing ICE agreement but ultimately deferred and chose to let Mayor Daniella Levine Cava ratify the deal herself.
Levine Cava told people who attended the hearing that she had no choice in the matter: “This is the law of Florida, and it was required that this agreement be signed.”
She and several commissioners noted that any public records the county has jurisdiction over would continue to be publicly available.
While officials in Miami-Dade have said they are committed to transparency, federal inmates, including people on immigration holds, had not been appearing in Orange County jail records until just last week.
Ericka Gómez-Tejeda, organizing director for Hope Community Center, said officials in the central Florida county took the position that the federal records were not covered by state open records laws, meaning immigrants were effectively disappearing into the system.
Gómez-Tejeda pointed to the case of Esvin Juarez, who was arrested and deported to Guatemala this month before his family and attorney even knew where he was being held. Making it difficult to track detained immigrants is intentional, she said.
“It’s working to the advantage of people’s due process being violated,” Gómez-Tejeda said.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings directed the jail to begin posting information about ICE detainees last week, but Gómez-Tejeda said that might not help inmates were arrested in other counties or states before being taken to Orange County.
“We have people who have been sent to four or five different detention centers,” Gómez-Tejeda said. “And each state that you go into, that family then needs to identify an attorney that will then do their representation and their paperwork. So it puts an onerous responsibility on the families.”
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Democrat who represents the Orlando area, introduced legislation this month aimed at stopping unlawful detention and ending detainee mistreatment. It would require all ICE facilities to publicly report who is being detained, as well as where, when and why.
“This bill won’t fix everything, but if Donald Trump and his allies think these policies are defensible, then they shouldn’t be afraid to tell the public exactly what they’re doing,” Frost said. “If they’re proud of it, they’ll report it. If they’re ashamed, they need to end it.”
Associated Press writer Kate Payne in Tallahassee contributed.
Camila Ramos is forcibly removed from a Miami Dade County Commissions meeting after they deferred a hearing relating to an agreement with ICE that advocacy groups say would make it harder for families to track undocumented immigrants once they are in custody, Thursday, June 26, 2025, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
FILE - The Federal Detention Center stands on Sept. 15, 2022, in Miami. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A hidden force is quietly pushing up costs for everything from your summer vacation to your weekly grocery bills: a weaker U.S. dollar.
The dollar has fallen about 10% against other major currencies since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, a pullback potentially playing a role in Americans’ concerns about affordability.
“It’s kind of a hidden tax,” says economist Thomas Savidge of the conservative-leaning American Institute for Economic Research. “What your dollar is going to be able to buy is going to shrink.”
A look at where the dollar stands and what it means for you:
The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the greenback against other major currencies, logged its steepest six-month drop in more than 50 years in the first half of 2025. Though the decline hasn’t deepened, the dollar index is still about 10% lower than the start of Trump’s term.
A strong dollar makes imports cheaper and can help keep inflation in check. A weak one can increase prices on foreign goods but boost American exports.
U.S. presidents have long voiced support for a strong dollar even as they pursued policies that, at times, pushed the currency lower. Trump has suggested a strong dollar puts the U.S. at a disadvantage and that a weak dollar helps American industry. And as with most things with Trump, he's been blunter in his messaging.
“You make a hell of a lot more money with a weaker dollar,” he said last year, one of a number of public statements showing his preference for seeing the dollar decline.
Trump isn’t alone in seeing benefits of a weaker buck.
In recent months, corporate earnings calls have been peppered with talk of how a weaker dollar has helped companies from Philip Morris to Coca-Cola, with executives pulling out C-suite phrases like “favorable currency impact” to note how the dip brought tailwinds outside the U.S. that added to bottom lines.
“In many cases, we’ve got a weaker dollar, which is not unhelpful,” Elie Maalouf, the CEO of InterContinental Hotels, said on a February call as the company announced higher profits and revenues.
For big multinational companies that do business overseas, a weaker dollar can spur sales for products that suddenly become cheaper. But the vast majority of U.S. businesses are not operating beyond the border. For those catering to domestic customers, it's a different story, particularly if they are reliant on importing goods.
Travis Madeira, a fourth-generation lobsterman who founded the lobster-shipping business LobsterBoys with his brother, makes about 80% of his sales to Americans, unlike some competitors who primarily export.
“The exporters are gonna have the advantage when it comes to the dollar weakening,” says Madeira, who is paying more to import bait and buy Canadian lobsters. “These guys are gonna have a little bit of a lever on us.”
Even among companies that do have a presence outside the U.S., the dollar's fall can have an impact. While many big companies hedge currency to try and insulate themselves or push more sales overseas, smaller businesses are often more susceptible to the turbulence.
David Navazio, CEO of Pennsylvania-based Gentell, which makes bandages and other medical supplies, operates plants in Brazil, Paraguay, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In each location, the dollar has fallen, increasing Gentell’s costs.
Gentell has had to raise some prices to reflect the currency fluctuation, which stacks on top of other challenges, including tariffs and war-related spikes to fuel costs.
“A year ago, none of these were concerns,” he says. “And it always hurts the consumer.”
For the American consumer, the reality of a declining dollar is most obvious during foreign travel or when making a purchase directly from an international seller.
Cross the border into Mexico, the top foreign destination of Americans, and your dollar is about 16% weaker versus the peso compared with early 2025. Declines of about 10% to 17% have been recorded elsewhere, including against the Swiss franc, South African rand, Danish krone, Swedish krona and the Euro.
As for goods imported to the U.S., there is an impact, but it's harder to gauge. Many economists estimate that, in advanced countries like the U.S., only about 5% to 10% of a currency dip is passed on to consumers.
But they are an added stress when prices are already affected by other factors.
Take coffee, one of the grocery items that has seen the biggest price hike in the past year. Brazil is the biggest source of coffee for the U.S. and the dollar has fallen around 13% versus its real. Currency fluctuations can hit harder in developing economies and, while only a fraction of the change may feed into coffee’s ballooning price, every bit can pile up. Coffee prices are up nearly 19% in the U.S. in the past year, according to government data.
Currency values are constantly moving and, while the dollar’s recent fall is notable, it has reached lower levels at points in the presidencies of each of Trump’s predecessors, back through the creation of the Dollar Index in 1973, when Richard Nixon was at the helm.
Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, says while “a lot of policies that Trump is doing are something of a cancer for the dollar,” he believes that it was destined to fall no matter who was in charge.
“The dollar had been on a 15-year bull run,” he said. “I would argue the dollar is still wildly overvalued, and over the next maybe five or six years, it might fall 15%.”
What does that mean for American consumers? Rogoff says commodity prices are likely to rise, particularly with the impact of the Iran war on fuel prices.
“They’re just going to go up,” he says, “no matter what the dollar’s at.”
Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky
FILE- In this June 15, 2018, file photo, twenty dollar bills are counted in North Andover, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)
FILE- This Wednesday, June 6, 2018, file photo shows U.S. currently in New York. AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)
