Florida sheriffs’ deputies will soon begin to detain undocumented immigrants, and officials say they will need more detention space to hold them all but they’re still being blocked by the feds.
At a July 22 meeting of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, Director Larry Keefe said all county sheriff’s offices and departments will have gone through immigration training and will be able to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally, an authorization that has already been used by Florida Highway Patrol troopers to detain people in traffic stops.
“Right now, the national strategy is to do everything we can, as led by Florida … to crank up the numbers in regard to arrest and apprehension and detention to influence voluntary departure decision making by illegal aliens,” Keefe said, referring to what’s also called “self-deportation.”
But the need for detention space will be “even more work, more acute,” Keefe said – even as Gov. Ron DeSantis has said he doesn’t want to be responsible for holding immigrants for months on end.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said Florida law enforcement groups have been “at loggerheads” with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over federal jail standards, which has prevented local jails from being able to be used as detention facilities.
Judd, chair of the State Immigration Enforcement Council, voiced concerns about these bureaucratic roadblocks in previous council meetings, saying federal standards – which he called “ridiculous at best and insane at worst” – are slowing them down.
“My biggest fear is we train up these different police departments and sheriff’s offices, and they’re eager and excited to go out here and detain these folks … it’s like, quite frankly, shooting fish in a barrel,” Judd said.
And “when we put the pedal to the metal and get up to the speed limit, there is no way in God’s green earth they can handle this capacity,” Judd added. “The president needs to know, until they stand up a lot of housing … the state of Florida will overwhelm them easily in one day because they’re already at their max capacity.”
Judd also said the state needs more immigration judges and the Florida Immigration Response Center needs more support because it can’t keep up with the number of phone calls. The call center provides immigration-related information for law enforcement.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also attended the meeting, said the state has the capacity to expand South Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz and open Camp Blanding in Starke for additional detention space, but called them “processing centers.” The people detained shouldn’t be there for a long time because they’re expeditiously deported, he explained.
“What I don’t want to do is babysit people for six months, that’s not what our role is,” DeSantis said.
The state is also still waiting on federal authorization to use National Guard Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers as immigration judges, DeSantis said. On July 1, during President Donald Trump’s visit to Alligator Alcatraz, he told Florida leaders he would approve the decision.
“At the end of the day, the ability to house and process these illegals is the responsibility of the federal government,” DeSantis said. “We’ve gone above and beyond in Florida to assist its mission because we think its really important for our state and for our country.
“But they absolutely are going to need to take all that massive amount of money they just got and be able to provide better ability to hold, process and deport illegals totally separate from anything our state agencies are doing.”
Immigration advocates, Democrats and environmental activists have denounced Alligator Alcatraz, the facility in the Everglades, since its inception. Most recently, on July 21, a group of 22 state legislators called upon the governor to rescind Executive Order 23-03, the immigration emergency order that DeSantis used to seize control of the land to create Alligator Alcatraz.
“This order is politically motivated, outdated, and a misuse of executive power. It’s draining resources from real emergencies — like hurricane prep and disaster response — just to enforce an extreme anti-immigrant agenda that is unethical and on shaky legal ground,” wrote Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, on X.
At the July 22 immigration board meeting, members also approved two resolutions.
One approved adding perimeters to the grant application process for reimbursement to local law enforcement for immigration-related costs, and the other was on data collection, including how many have been charged under the new state laws and the outcomes of their cases.
The State Board of Immigration Enforcement, established by Senate Bill 2C, was created within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and its members are the governor and Florida Cabinet: Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Attorney General James Uthmeier and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
This is the board’s first meeting since its inception in February; the position of CFO was vacated in April after Jimmy Patronis began serving as a representative for Florida’s Congressional District 1.
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida sheriff deputies will have power to make immigration arrests, officials say
Reporting by Ana Goñi-Lessan, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
