Why Martin County Sheriff’s Office Ranks Third in Immigration Encounters

(FLORIDA, UNITED STATES) Martin County Sheriff’s Office is reporting the third-highest number of immigration encounters in Florida over the past 90 days, a spike officials and public data attribute to a single factor: the Martin County jail is the only facility on the Treasure Coast with a contract to hold detainees for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In that three-month window, the sheriff’s office logged 427 ICE encounters, trailing only Polk County and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, according to newly released statewide data.

The numbers appear on Florida’s new ICE Dashboard, a public data tool launched in October 2025 that displays county-by-county encounters and arrests, and offers breakdowns by country of origin and arrest timelines. Statewide over the same period, there were 5,966 ICE encounters and 4,805 arrests. While Polk County and the state Highway Safety agency are higher overall, Martin County’s position near the top stands out along the Treasure Coast, where neighboring counties reported far fewer encounters. Palm Beach County recorded 86, and Okeechobee County reported just five during the same timeframe.

Local reporting has underscored that Martin County’s rank stems from geography and contracting, not unusual enforcement activity.

“The reason for that high ranking is not because of arrests, but because the Martin County jail has the Treasure Coast’s only contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
That arrangement means people detained by ICE across the broader region are routinely brought to the Martin County jail for holding, concentrating the tally of ICE encounters under the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, even when initial arrests happen elsewhere.

The dashboard’s 90-day snapshots illustrate how a single jail contract can reshape a county’s statewide profile. In Florida’s data, “encounters” reflect interactions that trigger ICE involvement, which can include jail screenings, detainer requests, or handoffs from other law enforcement agencies, while “arrests” denote cases that proceed to custody on immigration grounds. Because Martin County’s jail is the Treasure Coast’s only contracted holding site for ICE, encounters tied to detentions from neighboring jurisdictions are logged in Martin County’s column, swelling the total above counties without such agreements.

That helps explain the sharp contrast between Martin and its neighbors. The 86 encounters in Palm Beach County and the five in Okeechobee County over the past 90 days suggest that, absent a contract facility, local law enforcement may record fewer ICE interactions on paper, even when people are eventually transferred. In Martin County, by contrast, transfers, intakes, and holding stemming from regional operations are recorded as local encounters because they occur in the Martin County jail under the sheriff’s purview.

Polk County’s higher count and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles’ ranking above Martin County put the Treasure Coast figures in broader perspective. Polk, a large, fast-growing county in central Florida, has long featured in statewide enforcement tallies. The state Highway Safety agency, which oversees driver licensing and highway patrol functions, conducts stops and investigations across jurisdictional lines, and its activities can prompt ICE referrals that are recorded statewide. Against that backdrop, Martin County’s third-place position signals how administrative arrangements, rather than a surge in local raids or arrests, can move a smaller county up a statewide list.

The launch of the Florida ICE Dashboard has made these distinctions far more visible. For the first time, the public can view near real-time counts of ICE encounters and arrests at the county and agency level, along with snapshots that sort activity by country of origin and by the time between initial contact and arrest. The tool’s transparency makes clear that in Martin County’s case, procedure is driving the numbers: detainees from across the region are booked and held at the Martin County jail because it is the Treasure Coast’s only ICE contract facility, so encounter tallies accrue there.

The sheriff’s office has not claimed a county-led crackdown. Instead, the data and the reporting point to a logistical pipeline that routes ICE detainees into Martin County’s custody when a holding facility is needed. Regional transfers can begin with any number of agencies—municipal police, county sheriff’s deputies, or state officers—after a traffic stop, a jail screening, or a handoff from another jurisdiction. Once ICE requests detention, the lack of nearby contract facilities steers those cases to the Martin County jail, where the encounter is recorded.

For residents and officials across the Treasure Coast, the new figures may fuel debates about what ICE encounters actually show. In counties without ICE detention contracts, the local encounter totals may understate how often residents and travelers come into contact with immigration authorities, simply because the holding and recording happen somewhere else. In Martin County, the opposite is true: the administrative role of the jail turns the county into a reporting hub for regional activity, magnifying the numbers without indicating a disproportionate level of arrests by Martin County deputies.

The statewide totals put Martin County’s 427 ICE encounters in context. Florida’s 5,966 encounters and 4,805 arrests in the past 90 days demonstrate how frequently local and state policing intersects with federal immigration enforcement. The dashboard’s breakdowns by country of origin and arrest timelines, though not detailed here, offer additional clues to shifting patterns of migration and enforcement across different parts of the state. But the Martin County case shows that counting encounters requires careful attention to how and where detention happens, not just where stops or investigations begin.

Critically, the data also help clarify public confusion over what an “encounter” means. Not every encounter leads to an arrest, and not every arrest begins with a local deputy or officer. ICE can become involved when someone is booked into jail on a separate matter and flagged for immigration review, or when state and local agencies refer individuals after a stop or investigation. When those referrals lead to detention on the Treasure Coast, the Martin County jail’s contract ensures the booking and custody occur in Stuart, and the resulting ICE encounters land in Martin County’s ledger.

For community groups and defense attorneys tracking immigration activity across the region, the dashboard’s launch offers both transparency and a caution. The public can now see that Martin County’s elevated rank is not a simple story of more arrests on its streets. Rather, it is an administrative outcome of being the only ICE-contracted facility on the Treasure Coast, concentrating the bookkeeping of regional ICE encounters under a single county’s name. Neighboring counties’ lower tallies, like Palm Beach’s 86 and Okeechobee’s five, are equally a function of where holding occurs, not necessarily a measure of how often ICE interacts with people within those counties’ borders.

State officials have pointed out that the dashboard will be updated regularly, allowing county-by-county comparisons to evolve as contracts change or as law enforcement activity shifts. If another Treasure Coast county were to sign a detention agreement with ICE, Martin County’s share of the regional encounters could drop even without any change to policing on the ground. Conversely, as long as the Martin County jail remains the sole ICE contract facility in the area, its encounter totals are likely to reflect not just local actions, but the region’s reliance on a single site for holding.

The spotlight on Martin County also highlights the complicated role of county jails in federal immigration enforcement. Local sheriffs manage facilities that can become nodes in a federal system, even when their deputies are not the ones making immigration arrests. That dynamic can strain local resources and inflame public debate, particularly when residents interpret high encounter numbers as evidence of intensified local policing, rather than the byproduct of a detention contract. The dashboard’s agency-by-agency listings—where the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles appears alongside sheriffs’ offices—underscore that multiple hands feed the same data stream.

For those seeking broader information about how ICE coordinates with local agencies, the federal agency’s website explains its operations and programs, including detention and removal. Details on detainers, custody transfers, and facility contracts are available through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which provides policy documents and public-facing guidance. The Florida dashboard adds a state-level window into those interactions, but the mechanics of custody and transfer remain governed by federal practices and local agreements like the Martin County jail’s contract.

As the 90-day counts continue to refresh, Martin County’s position may shift up or down, but the cause remains the same. The county’s third-place tally sits behind only Polk County and the state Highway Safety agency not because of an unusual burst of local arrests, but because it is the place where ICE brings people for holding across the Treasure Coast. In the words of the reporting that has framed the issue from the start:

“The reason for that high ranking is not because of arrests, but because the Martin County jail has the Treasure Coast’s only contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”