Florida officials announce more than 6,000 immigration arrests

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.

That total is in comparison to the more than 5,000 arrests carried out over a three-month period in the Los Angeles area, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 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 president’s adopted home state has seen more local and state departments sign on to the deals known as 287(g) agreements 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.

On Friday, officials announced that 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.

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.