Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers worked alongside local police to make nearly 800 arrests in Florida this week as part of an operation law enforcement officials called the “first of its kind” and a “preview of what’s to come throughout the nation.”
Arrests were carried out Monday through Saturday and dubbed “Operation Tidal Wave,” ICE said in a statement. The agency called the operation a “massive, multi-agency, immigration enforcement crackdown.”
The operation played out as Donald Trump’s administration deploys federal law enforcement agencies into communities throughout the United States to speed up removals as part of the president’s mass deportation agenda.
The agreement between ICE and local law enforcement relies on ICE's 287(g) authority, which allows the agency to effectively deputize local police to carry out immigration-related arrests. Some 200 Florida law enforcement agencies — including sheriff’s offices, city police departments and college campus police departments — have signed 287(g) agreements with ICE, the most out of any state.
Nationwide, there has been a 371 percent increase in the number of 287(g) agreements signed by local agencies, acting ICE director Todd Lyons told ABC News.
The operation is the “first of its kind” and a “preview of what’s to come throughout the nation,” Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News.
Immigrants rights’ advocates fear the scale of arrests will result in so-called “collateral” arrests that allow officers to detain immigrants who were not initially targeted but got caught up in raids.
“It’s going to break up families,” Tessa Petit, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, told The New York Times. “And that is not the welcoming state that Florida has been for immigrants for decades.”
The operation targeted people in Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tallahassee and Fort Myers, according to records reviewed by the Tallahassee Democrat.
Local officials opposing the administration’s push to partner with local law enforcement have also faced threats from Trump’s allies.
Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier opened an investigation into the Fort Meyers city council when members voted against an agreement to train city police on how to partner with ICE, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Republican Governor Ron DeSantis also had a stark warning for local officials following the no-vote: “Florida will ensure its laws are followed, and when it comes to immigration — the days of inaction are over. Govern yourselves accordingly."
These federal-local partnerships are set to continue, ICE deputy director Madison Sheahan told ABC News.
“We’ve seen historic partnerships with the state of Texas that has been going on and being able to expand. We've seen historic partnerships in Virginia as well as many other states that are coming to the table, even states that you wouldn't necessarily always think of as border states,” Sheahan said.
Trump’s immigration approval rating fell from a net score of plus 18 points to a net score of just plus 10 points since mid-March, according to a poll by Echelon Insights released earlier this month. Similarly, a New York Times/Siena poll released this week shows the majority of voters believe Trump has gone too far on immigration enforcement.
The drop follows legal and public backlash against a series of high-profile immigration enforcement actions, including the Trump’s administration’s refusal to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father and Salvadoran immigrant who was living in Maryland and deported to a notorious prison in his home country.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the government must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia. A federal appeals court said the removal of U.S. residents “without due process” should be “shocking” to Americans’ “intuitive sense of liberty.”
El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said he will not make efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the United States while lawyers for Abrego Garcia continue to fight for his return in court.
Trump administration officials were reportedly planning to seek Abrego Garcia’s return, but the White House performed a dramatic U-turn soon afterward, The Atlantic reports. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denies that there was ever an effort to bring Abrego Garcia back.
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