Florida is moving swiftly to tighten cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration officials to carry out the Trump administration's deportation efforts.
All of the state's 67 counties have signed onto a 287(g) Agreement, a federal contract that allows state and local law enforcement to carry out certain tasks for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The Florida Sheriff's Association announced the milestone during a Monday news conference.
The move is part of an effort to comply with a sweeping immigration bill passed during a special session of the Florida Legislature.
"It's Florida Sheriff's Association leading the way for the state of Florida, but we're also leading the way for the United States," said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who was tapped to join the newly-created State Immigration Enforcement Council.
Several of Florida's state agencies and counties are also among some of the first to sign onto a newly-added Task Force Model of the 287(g) program, which would broaden local and state officers' authority outside of county jail and detention centers.
"We do what's right, and we follow the law, and if you're here illegally, we're going to boot your butt out of this country."Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd
A similar street enforcement model was discontinued in 2012 after Department of Justice investigations found instances of racial profiling. The remaining two models under the program authorized local and state officers to detain and interrogate suspects only within county jails or detention centers.
The training time for officers under the program have also been shortened, according to Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who was also appointed to the State Immigration Enforcement Council.
The Jail Enforcement model required officers to go through a four-week training where they learn how to interrogate suspected non-citizens to determine their immigration status within the jail and then issue the ICE detainers.
That will be condensed into five days.
The Warrant Service Officer Model is more common and trains law enforcement to serve detainer requests, not interrogate suspects. That used to require eight hours of training — but now will only require four.
"The training in the past has been pretty extensive," said Gualtieri, "but all of it now is going to get streamlined and we can get this done."
The goal is to have officers trained within the next 15 to 30 days, said Gualtieri.
Charlotte County Sheriff Bill Prummell said during the news conference that they were "working on the future training" for the new Task Force Model that would "augment some of the powers of ICE out there on the street as we're doing our normal duties."
So far, state agencies including the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, the Department of Law Enforcement and the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have signed onto that model.
St. Lucie County is on ICE's list of participating agencies as well.
Meanwhile, Collier and Lee Counties, along with Florida Department of Agriculture and the State Guard, have pending applications for the Task Force Model.
READ MORE: ICE is quietly expanding operations with local law enforcement across the nation
Judd pushed back against the idea that an expanded 287(g) program would lead to racial profiling.
"That's BS, it's total BS, it's woke left, crazy talk," said Judd. "We do what's right, and we follow the law, and if you're here illegally, we're going to boot your butt out of this country."
Judd said one of the top issues for federal immigration officials is the limited bed space in county detention centers, saying that there are about 2,000 beds in Florida, and about 40,000 across the country.
For that reason, he said immigration officials will have to prioritize those who are in the country illegally and are public safety threats or who have been removed previously and come back into the U.S. without authorization.
"If you're here working, you have your kids in school, you're paying your taxes, you're not the priority," said Judd, "It's the criminals."
Gualtieri said that there is "room for discussion" for those who don't commit crimes.
"There are some people out there ... who espouse empathy for some people in our country illegally because of decades of failed federal immigration policies," he said.
"Those are people who have been here for years, albeit illegally, who have assimilated into our communities, work in some cases, and, in some cases, even pay taxes, and those people commit no crimes. And there is room for discussion about that."
But Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, told the News Service of Florida that the law is “overly broad and vague” and will “lead to rampant racial profiling” of people who are perceived to be immigrants.
“This law and the rhetoric surrounding it create an environment that will inevitably lead to racial and ethnic profiling of anyone perceived to be an immigrant based on the color of their skin, the accent in their voice, the neighborhoods they live in, or the restaurants and businesses they frequent,” Gross said.
In 2011 and 2012, investigations by the DOJ found that sheriff's offices in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Alamance County, North Carolina, targeted Latino neighborhoods and conducted "sweeps" that led to Latino drivers being stopped and arrested more often than non-Latino drivers.
A 2022 study from Texas A&M University also found that state troopers in North Carolina and South Carolina that were not part of 287(g) agreements still stopped Hispanic drivers more often than white drivers "to funnel them into the intensive immigration screening" conducted at jails shared by agencies that had agreements with ICE.
Information from the News Service of Florida was used in this story.
