(The Center Square) – Florida officials say April’s Operation Tidal Wave was just a warmup for immigration enforcement and independent action by state and local law enforcement is on the horizon.
All 67 Florida sheriffs have signed agreements to join the 287(g) program and Gov. Ron DeSantis says half of all local law enforcement agencies participating nationally are based in the Sunshine State, which he says is because of the immigration bills he signed in February.
“What we have now with FHP is that they are able to conduct immigration operations wholly independent of the federal government, and there’s no one else in the country where they’re doing that,” DeSantis said, referring to Florida Highway Patrol. “Now, Tidal Wave was a task force model where they were working in conjunction these guys now at FHP, you know, they can do operations. They can get illegals, and they can do everything that an immigration officer would do, up until the point where they get processed for removal. Now we’ve put plans on the table to say we can handle that too.”
The 287(g) agreements allow state law enforcement to perform immigration officer functions.
Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner said 1,800 state troopers are federally certified to carry out immigration enforcement duties with federal partners. He also said that the rest of the troopers that aren’t are either on active military duty as reservists or are on sick leave and will be certified when they return to duty.
Kerner also said local law enforcement agencies are also becoming part of the immigration solution.
State Board of Immigration Enforcement Executive Director Larry Keefe said the state and local efforts on immigration are a role model for the nation and that state officials continue to upgrade the model exemplified by Operation Tidal Wave.
“Because for every 15 federal law enforcement officers in this country, there’s 85 state and local law enforcement officers in this country, you need these force multipliers,” Keefe said. “It all depended on the force multipliers. The feds could have gone anywhere they wanted to any state they wanted, but they didn’t have to look far, and it didn’t take them too long. They needed to know a place where they had leadership that was bold. They had leadership that was decisive.”
Operation Tidal Wave was an operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state and local law enforcement agencies in Florida that arrested 1,120 people suspected of illegally entering the country, the most in the agency’s history in one state.
Sworn state and local law enforcement officers will have the ability under the 287(g) program to interrogate any suspects on immigration status. If they’re in violation of the country’s immigration laws, they can be further detained and processed.
These officers will also be able to arrest and detain people trying to enter the country through the state’s ports or coastline.
They will also have the power to serve and execute warrants of arrest for immigration violations and deliver migrants to ICE for further screening.
