Florida officials announce more than 6,000 immigration arrests
[September 27, 2025]
By KATE PAYNE
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Over the last five months, Florida law
enforcement officials have arrested more than 6,000 people suspected of
being in the country illegally, a U.S. Border Patrol official announced
Friday, as the state continues its aggressive approach to help carry out
President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda.
The announcement comes as Department of Homeland Security officials
declared they are reimbursing the state for nearly $30 million for
immigration-related expenses, underlining Florida's growing importance
to the Trump administration’s mass immigration crackdown. At an event
Friday in Tallahassee, Madison Sheahan, the deputy director of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, applauded Florida's efforts and
said the agency is doling out $1.7 billion to state and local law
enforcement across the country.
“Our federal partners are sitting there with a checkbook, ready to
write,” said Rob Hardwick, sheriff of St. Johns County, south of
Jacksonville. Hardwick's officers alone have carried out more than 700
immigration-related arrests, according to a state official.
“I recommend you get on board,” Hardwick said at Friday's news
conference, in a message directed at other local law enforcement
officials.
Florida's total of more than 6,000 arrests builds on the more than 5,000
arrests carried out over a three-month period in the Los Angeles area,
according to DHS, and the more than 940 arrests that officials made over
one month in a Washington, D.C., operation.
Local and state officers in Florida have been empowered to launch a
sweeping immigration enforcement effort to arrest residents who lack
legal status, thanks to the Trump administration's revival of an old
federal program that delegates authority to local police, county
sheriffs and state agencies.
The number of 287(g) agreements has soared to 1,036 during Trump's
second administration, with Florida agencies signing 326, more than any
other state. Some participating institutions appear to have little, if
anything, to do with immigration enforcement, including the Florida
Department of Lottery Services.
Friday's funding announcement includes more than $10 million for local
agencies in Florida and another $28.5 million for state-level partners,
to help cover equipment and transportation expenses and offset the
salary, benefit and overtime expenses of the more than 4,700 Florida
officers who are now deputized to carry out immigration enforcement.
“This is just the beginning,” Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
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Trailers sit parked in lines as work progresses on a migrant
detention center at Dade-Collier Training and Transition facility in
the Florida Everglades, July 4, 2025, in Ochopee, Fla. (AP
Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, file)
Also on Friday, officials announced details of an operation carried out
by local, state and federal partners resulted in more than 350 arrests
in central Florida over the span of four days. Speaking to reporters at
an event in Cocoa, Florida, Jeff Dinise, chief patrol agent of the U.S.
Border Patrol's Miami Sector, said the federal government has “no better
partner" than the state of Florida, holding up the state as a national
model.
“The state of Florida and our Florida sheriffs have embedded in every
facet of homeland security,” Dinise said.
In a state where nearly a quarter of residents are foreign-born and much
of the economy is driven by tourism, hospitality and agriculture,
Florida is a prime location for law enforcement to find and detain
people suspected of being in the country illegally, in targeted
operations that immigrant advocates argue are discriminatory. Traffic
stops meant to nab immigrant workers without status on the way to a job
site have led to the arrest of at least two U.S. citizens in Florida.
The state is also fronting hundreds to millions of dollars to house
immigrant detainees for the federal government, holding them in
state-run facilities as they appeal their cases or await deportation.
The makeshift detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed
“Alligator Alcatraz” has been the target of multiple federal lawsuits
seeking to shutter the remote compound of tents and trailers.
Earlier this month, Florida officials announced they had opened a second
immigration detention facility at a state prison east of Jacksonville.
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