The Gulfport City Council held a workshop on February 26, 2026, to address public questions and concerns regarding the 287G agreement between the Gulfport Police Department and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The meeting was called by Mayor after a previous council meeting where AI-generated photos of ICE vehicles in front of the library circulated without basis. The mayor stated the focus would be on facts about Gulfport, not speculation, and emphasized decorum. Police Chief presented a timeline and details of the agreement, followed by public comment and council discussion. No decisions were made as the workshop was informational.
We're um generating AI photos of ice cars in front of our library and circulating that as if that was going on here in Gulfport. Okay. And there wasn't a basis of truth for that in Gulfport. I'm not, I'm only going to talk about Gulfport because I'm the mayor of Gulfport, and this is a Gulf Port meeting. That particular night, I have to say I really um respected and appreciated that our residents said what they had to say, and I feel like we heard them. As I said, I feel like our chief was pretty blindsided that night. She did not know that she was going to be called upon to give a presentation of anything that had anything to do with ice that night. She's gonna tell us how did we get here, where are we, what's actually happening in Gulfport. All right. Um, we're not going to be focusing on I heards, well, I heard, or what ifs, but what if, but what if? We're not going to focus on that. We're gonna actually talk about what's actually happening here in Gulfport. Um, our focus has been and will continue to be Gulfport. We are a city council. Um the police chief has made it clear to me that she will not be disclosing anything that is considered confidential information. Um, as she speaks to the council, she will come up for air periodically and allow the council to ask clarifying questions of what she's addressed, like you know, because sometimes people are talking about something, and there's just you missed one part of it, and then it's hard to uh follow along. Following her presentation, um, we will then call on the um city attorney to address anything else that he feels that is pertinent that maybe was not addressed by her, and then what we're gonna do is go to public comment. So anybody in this room who came for public comment, you're gonna be allowed to speak. I see a lot of faces that I do not know, so just so you're clear when you come up for public comment, you don't ever speak from the chairs. Okay, you come up here, you use that microphone, you have three minutes to speak. I usually am I'm used to saying you can speak about anything you want, but tonight it's only one topic, but you can say whatever you want during that time. When you come up, you have to give your name and your address. That's our policies and procedures and has been for a long time. It didn't get changed. Um I lost my chain of thought for just a second. Um, again, because there's people here that I don't know, there's just a couple things you should know. You can say whatever you want to say, but it has to be respectful. We keep decorum in this city um hall room at all point all times, all right. Um if you need to have a side conversation, I understand that, but your side conversation goes out to the lobby. There's only one conversation going on here at one time. And if you like what somebody said, you knew you do not applaud. And if you don't like what somebody said, you do not boo. I think that's what we were talking about when we said make sure your phones are off. Check again. All right, so with that in mind, then um, I think that we'll turn it over to the chief. And uh for those of you who don't know, this is our police chief. She has been here with the city of Gulfport for 20 some years. 25 in August. Okay, and she will be talking to us, but she will be talking into the microphone, and if there's any chance that you can't hear, let us know, and we'll try and make adjustments, okay? Thank you. Good evening, council, city manager, city attorney, city clerk. All right, so 287G, how did we get here? Can everyone hear me okay? I suspect you should have the microphone a little closer just for the recording. It's fine. He says it's fine. I'll speak up. Okay. All right. The purpose of this presentation is to answer commonly asked questions about the 287G memo of agreement, and hopefully to help provide a clearer understanding of how we arrived at this point and how this process works.