NCFL Stop Starke Detention Center! NO ICE! Indivisible Actions— April 13, 2026
Volume 2, Issue 12
In this issue:
STOP STARKE CONCENTRATION CAMP!!!
TONIGHT! NCFl Indivisible Meeting: Overview of Starke concentration camp:
Wed, April 15th, 7:00 pm. Hybrid.
In person at Life South Blood Center, at 1221 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32601
Over zoom tonight: overview of DETENTION CENTER and TALKING POINTS:
Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/rixfUg-iROyB_ykHjYB_-A
PACK THE ROOM @ Bradford County Commission Meeting:
Thursday April 16th 6:30 pm. 945 N Temple Ave, Starke, FL 32091
Carpools available from Oaks Mall leaving at 5 pm. Please call 352-641-0095 for a ride.
Communities Not Cages Protest
April 25th 10:30 am - 12:30 pm, in front of proposed ICE facility
Want to fight concentration camps in Florida? Join our statewide Indivisible Stop CC action team - now forming.
Our press release regarding the Starke Concentration Camp in Bradford County - proposal will be discussed and voted on TOMORROW!
Wednesday, April 15th, 2026
Contact: Jyoti Parmar, North Central Florida Indivisible
352-641-0095
Ncfindivisible@gmail.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Community Rallies to Stop Proposed Concentration Camp in Starke
Bradford County Commission Meeting: Thursday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m.
Starke, FL - Residents, faith leaders, and grassroots organizations from across Bradford, Alachua, Suwannee, and Putnam Counties are coming together to demand that the Bradford County Commission reject a plan to build what advocates are calling a concentration camp in the heart of their community.
At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, community members will gather at 945 N Temple Avenue in Starke to oppose Sheriff Gordon Smith’s proposal to convert an industrial warehouse to imprison up to 3,000 of our immigrant neighbors, without a trial.
Starke - a town of fewer than 6,000 people - would be forced to absorb a massive detention operation that opponents say threatens the community’s moral integrity, public health, and economic stability. The mass deportation efforts this concentration camp would facilitate has grown so unpopular nationally that even Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County, appointed as Chair of Florida’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement, stated that the immigration enforcement efforts cast “too wide a net, and we’re hurting people who are not the target of this entire operation.”
Public opposition is already overwhelming. At last week’s commission meeting, more than 100 residents showed up, with over 20 speakers condemning the proposal. Not a single person spoke in support. Over 200 Bradford County residents have already signed a petition demanding that commissioners reject the plan.
Organizers argue that calling the facility a “detention center” obscures its true nature.
“We are spending our own tax dollars to build a system of human suffering in our backyard. In Baker County, people have reported months in solitary confinement for minor misunderstandings, sexual abuse, and medical neglect so severe it endangered lives. At Krome, detainees have described overcrowded cells, unsanitary conditions, and lack of basic food, hygiene, and medical care. We refuse to be the agents of such cruelty - our communities deserve accountability, dignity, and a legacy we can stand behind, said Jyoti Parmar of North Central Florida Indivisible.
“This is a mass incarceration site targeting immigrant communities,” said Jenna Talleda, a community member.. “It will separate families, cage human beings, and expand a system that has repeatedly been exposed for abuse and neglect.”
Critics also point to serious environmental and safety concerns at the proposed site. “This warehouse has a history of industrial contamination and is not fit for humans,” said Bradford County resident Kate Ellison. “Rushing into an agreement under these conditions is reckless and dangerous.”
Sierra Club volunteer leader, Sarah Younger shared “ Proposals like these place an unfair burden on local resources - straining water resources, increasing pollution, and diverting public funds away from sustainable development. Bradford County deserves investments that strengthen long-term environmental health, economic stability, and community well-being - not projects that create lasting harm with little local benefit.
Opponents emphasize that taxpayers would be footing the bill for a project they say will harm - not help - the community. They point to Glades County, which has a county-run detention center with a fraction of the capacity proposed for Starke, as an example of the terrible deal: due to the fluctuating detainee population, Glades County Detention Center requires local funds to subsidize its operation while any revenue that was made went to out-of-county shareholders.
Ethan Maia de Needell, coordinator for the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative stated “Bradford County Commissioners must decide whether they want to mire their residents in medical and water shortages, county-subsidized jobs, and the abuse of fellow Floridians, or whether they want to move forward with the other plan before them which would not depend on human misery.”
A press liaison from North Central Florida Indivisible will be present to assist attendees and distribute materials outlining the case against the project.
Organizers are calling on all community members to attend, speak out, and stand in solidarity.
“We will not allow our community to become a site of mass Concentration Camp. Not here. Not now. Not ever”
ICE detention center back with no alternatives @ Bradford County BOCC 2026-04-16
Despite two other options for use of the Douglas Building being discussed last time, only the ICE detention center is on the agenda for the Bradford County Commission tomorrow, 6:30 PM, Thursday, April 16, 2026. That’s at the Bradford County Courthouse, 945 North Temple Avenue, Starke, Florida 32091.
The board packet does not include the text of the proposed lease, nor any comment on it by the county attorney.
There’s also nothing on the agenda about any results of the FDEP contamination study they approved last time, March 7, 2026. That would have to take much longer than nine days, anyway.
According to Sheriff Gordon Smith‘s agenda item detail, such a detention center “would be capable of housing up to 3,000 detainees.” Remember the population of Starke is about 6,000. So that’s a 50% increase, plus ICE and other personnel.
Join us this Thursday at Bradford county commission meeting at 6:30 pm - rides available - call everyone!
https://www.facebook.com/share/1Bg5FvCJQq/
No Concentration Camps in Florida!
If you would like to oppose building camps in Florida, join Indivisible Statewide Solidarity. Join this Signal group or sign up to fight a Starke Internment Camp!
Whether these places are called detention centers, internment camps, concentration camps, or “[Amazon] Prime, but with human beings,” we will oppose them.
Not here. Not now. Not ever.