- Mayor Jane Castor revised Tampa’s immigration policies following legal threats from Florida’s Attorney General.
- The update removes restrictions on officers participating in broad-based federal immigration enforcement actions.
- New rules require documenting immigration status inquiries using a specific form to ensure compliance.
(TAMPA, FLORIDA) — Mayor Jane Castor updated the Tampa Police Department’s immigration enforcement policies on March 16, 2026, after Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned she could face civil penalties and removal from office if the city did not reverse what he called “unlawful sanctuary policies” by March 31.
Castor moved to revise the department’s policy language after Uthmeier’s March 11, 2026 letter framed Tampa’s prior approach as a violation of Florida’s anti-sanctuary framework and a direct test of whether local governments are making “best efforts” to support immigration enforcement.
In a response letter dated March 16, Castor said the city rewrote the provisions the attorney general flagged and said the city would push the revised guidance out to officers at once. “The City of Tampa has no intention of violating state or federal law. We will continue to use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law, as well as state law. We intend to publish and distribute the updated policy to our officers effective immediately.”
Uthmeier’s letter set a deadline of March 31 and tied the threat of removal to whether Tampa maintained policies he described as restricting cooperation and shielding certain people from immigration consequences. The attorney general accused the department of “undermining state law,” while pointing to victim-and-witness issues as a central argument in the dispute.
A core flashpoint in his criticism was the city’s prior rationale for limiting immigration-related enforcement activity and information sharing around victims and witnesses, which Uthmeier argued contradicted Florida law’s “best efforts” standard. “TPD ostensibly supports these policies because they do not want illegal aliens to be concerned with immigration consequences by cooperating with law enforcement. But we want illegal aliens to fear immigration consequences to the extent they are here unlawfully,” he wrote.
Castor’s March 16 update took aim at the specific policy language at issue, while keeping the city’s public position centered on compliance with both state and federal law. Her letter described the changes as targeted revisions rather than a shift in the city’s overall posture, emphasizing that Tampa intended to remove the “language of concern” and formalize the revised guidance for Tampa Police Department personnel.
The attorney general also pointed to federal victim-protection pathways as a reason local “sanctuary” buffers were not necessary under Florida law, citing Department of Homeland Security guidance on “Immigration Options for Victims of Crime.” The exchange unfolded as DHS faced leadership upheaval after the March 5 removal of Secretary Kristi Noem, though no direct statement from transitionary DHS leadership addressed Tampa’s specific policy update.
The revised Tampa Police Department policy took effect March 16, 2026, and removed prior language that barred officers from participating in certain “broad-based” enforcement actions. Under the earlier policy, officers were prohibited from joining activities described as traffic checkpoints, workplace operations, or “area saturation sweeps,” but the update eliminated that restriction entirely.
The changes also rewrote how officers handle information sharing involving victims and witnesses, with the department aligning the policy with Florida Statute 908.104. The revised language clarifies that officers are “not required” to share information with federal agents if a victim or witness is “necessary to the investigation,” while also removing the prior approach that strictly prohibited sharing in those circumstances.
Tampa’s update added a documentation requirement for immigration-status inquiries by officers, standardizing how encounters get recorded. Officers who initiate immigration status inquiries must now document the encounter using a “Suspected Unauthorized Alien Contact” form, a change the city presented as part of making the revised policy operational for day-to-day policing.
The city also reaffirmed its participation in the existing 287(g) Task Force Model agreement with ICE, which allows certain trained local personnel to carry out limited federal immigration authority. Tampa described the agreement as an ongoing component of its compliance posture, and the policy update referenced the current staffing levels tied to that model: six officers and two supervisors.
The dispute sits within Florida’s 2019 anti-sanctuary law, which requires local entities to make “best efforts” to support federal immigration enforcement and avoid policies that block cooperation. Uthmeier’s position treated any restriction on sharing immigration-related information as failing that test, while Tampa’s earlier language reflected a competing public-safety concern about whether victims and witnesses would cooperate.
Immigration advocates and legal experts, including those from the Community Justice Project, warned that removing protections will “chill” cooperation, linking policy language to whether residents report crimes or serve as witnesses. The city’s revision, they argued, could change how people weigh the risk of immigration consequences when deciding whether to call police or participate in investigations.
State officials framed the dispute as one of enforcement uniformity and deterrence, with Uthmeier arguing that federal victim protections already exist and that local restrictions were therefore not justified under Florida law. Tampa’s update kept the policy’s victim-and-witness language tied to Florida Statute 908.104, but the practical effect of the rewrite will depend on how the Tampa Police Department implements the new guidance in daily operations, including how officers use the new documentation form.
The threat of removal also came against a political backdrop in which Florida’s executive branch has taken aggressive action against local officials, including the 2022 suspension of State Attorney Andrew Warren. At the federal level, the policy fight unfolded as President Trump nominated Senator Markwayne Mullin to lead the department following a partial DHS funding shutdown, adding to the national scrutiny of immigration enforcement and local cooperation.
Official copies of the documents referenced in the dispute are available through the Florida Attorney General’s Office at myfloridalegal.com and the City of Tampa’s materials at tampa.gov, while the federal guidance Uthmeier cited appears on DHS’s page for Immigration Options for Victims of Crime. In her March 16 letter, Castor anchored Tampa’s response in the same compliance framing that drove the revision: “The City of Tampa has no intention of violating state or federal law.”
