DORAL, MIAMI — Doral backed candidate Donald Trump for president in 2024, a symbolic endorsement considering the city’s large Hispanic population — in a race where the issue of immigration was one of the more important topics, and remains so today.

Questions are swirling around the Miami-Dade suburb — home to the president’s golf resort and the country’s largest Venezuelan community — over how much of an impact the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is going to have on this year’s congressional midterms, and its mayor is struggling to explain her position on it.

Mayor Christi Fraga, a Cuban-American Republican, has faced weeks of questions about the city’s 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The questions have come in local television interviews, at City Hall meetings and from activists, and they now reach into the November council elections.

The Doral City Council approved the agreement unanimously in April 2025, as CBS Miami reported at the time. The meeting was tense. Councilwoman Digna Cabral and Fraga clashed over how the police chief should answer her questions about the deal’s implications, and Fraga told reporters afterward that Doral is “a community of immigrants, but not undocumented immigrants.”

The agreement lets ICE train and deputize local officers for immigration enforcement.

City officials said at the time that Florida law required it.

The politics shifted in September, when local business owners told outlets that ICE activity was emptying restaurants and shops, reducing the supply of labor for local businesses. One owner said sales had fallen 70%, a figure that reflects a single business rather than a citywide count.

Fraga responded that local governments cannot stop federal agents from carrying out lawful enforcement operations and that Doral gets no advance notice of operations.

The major did, however, state: “I don’t agree with the way things are handled.”

“Under Pressure from DeSantis”

A few days later, Fraga told Telemundo 51 that she signed the agreement under pressure from Governor Ron DeSantis and the state attorney general. She said she understood a 2025 state law required it and that officials had been warned they could be removed from office and that police could lose their accreditation. She also asked why cities that did not sign had not faced those consequences.

Several of Doral’s neighbors in Miami-Dade County fit that description. Miramar, Coral Springs and Pompano Beach have not signed 287(g) agreements, according to WLRN.

What Fraga Says Now

At an October 7 council meeting, Fraga said the city acted on its attorneys’ advice, which has not changed. She argued that residents’ fear comes from raids by federal agents, not from local officers deputized under the agreement, and said Doral cannot stop federal arrests inside its borders. She and Police Chief Matthew Castillo have repeatedly said no Doral officers are enforcing immigration law.

Activists didn’t budge. They delivered between 160 and 170 resident signatures to City Hall, though an ordinance petition would need signatures from 10% of registered voters. In a special election in December 2024, just over 4,000 people voted.

Juan Cuba, an activist who met with Fraga, said she agreed enforcement was hurting families but still acts “from a place of fear” toward state and federal officials.

Trump Looms Over Everything

Border czar Tom Homan visited Doral on October 1 and said the arrests would only grow, according to WLRN. At the same time, Doral voted for Trump in every precinct in 2024, and residents now call the city “Doralghost.”

Some Republican voters still support him on the economy but say they are concerned about harsh immigration operations.

In her State of the City address on October 15, Fraga told residents that “many of our neighbors are hurting right now.” Officials have not indicated that Doral will leave the agreement.

Voters will pick two council seats and vote on a referendum on November 3, which will test whether the mayor’s explanation, that she followed the law and has been left with little room to act, is enough for a city that made her a Trump ally.