ORLANDO, Fla. — As more people continue to wait in line daily outside Orlando’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, the focus has turned to encouraging them to make appointments.
What You Need To Know
- Lines continue at Orlando's ICE office
- Immigration, Customs officials urge people to book appointment online or by email
- U.S. Rep. Val Demings says schedulers were not familiar with the district
- Sen. Marco Rubio said the problem results from not enforcing law
The United States in March released over 65,000 migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border, with orders for them to report to facilities like Orlando’s, where some people are camping out to get an appointment to get their documentation processed.
Orlando’s ICE office has urged people to make appointments before getting in line and is warning those who wait that it’s possible workers will not get to help everyone in line in one day. Officials say you can schedule an appointment online or email ICE-ERO-MIA-ORL-ScheduleAppt-SMB@ice.dhs.gov.
U.S. Rep. Val Demings (D-Florida) said she reached out to Orlando’s office to help get some problems resolved.
“They really didn’t have a system of prioritizing, nor their own system of making appointments,” said Demings. “Those appointments were being given by someone in a different state, but they had absolutely no clue on what was going on, on the ground in our district.”
Several immigrants earlier this week said they got inside the office but didn’t get their problems addressed. Most of them received another appointment to come back at another time, in person.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), commenting on the situation, was critical of the issues migrants are facing.
“The human suffering is heartbreaking, both here and along our southern border,” Rubio said. “What we’re seeing is the result of President (Joe) Biden’s failure to secure the border and enforce our laws.”
Earlier this week, ICE announced a rule to temporarily extend employment authorization and documentation for certain renewal applicants.