February 12, 2025

Gov. DeSantis Forges Relationship With ICE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.
By Rick McCann
February 12, 2025

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a formal agreement between the state and the Department of Homeland Security during a news conference last Friday morning.

DeSantis said that the state will assist with additional funding to specifically train Florida Highway Patrol troopers on what to look for and how to detain illegal immigrants in the United States.

The agreement will allow FHP troopers to be trained and approved by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] to arrest and detain illegal immigrants, then deliver them to federal authorities.

The arrangement will help “fulfill the president’s mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history,” DeSantis said.

“We didn’t hesitate to step up,” DeSantis said. “We will take advantage of this, and we will be strong partners. The goal is we need to reestablish interior enforcement in this country.”

DeSantis said it will take a while for the state to fully implement the agreement since troopers will need to be trained.

While enforcement of immigration laws fall under federal authority, local and state law enforcement have authority to detail suspected illegal immigrants and turn them over to ICE.

Under President Donald Trump, ICE is reviving and expanding a decades-old program that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation. The 287(g) program — named for a section of the 1996 law that created it — currently applies only to those already jailed or imprisoned on charges.

But Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets, reviving a model that former President Barrack Obama discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling.

A law known as 287g has been used in the past to detain arrestees who have been charged on local crimes of they are found to be an illegal immigrant but have recent anti-police protests, many sheriffs have stopped enforcing that law.

The law states:
Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies. This partnership gives state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform some immigration enforcement duties. The goal of the program is to remove noncitizens who threaten national security or violate immigration laws.

Advocates for immigrants, meanwhile, are raising alarm about new pacts that put local law officers on immigration enforcement, including concerns about racial profiling.