Editor's note: The Tally is a new Suncoast Searchlight series that examines issues affecting communities across the Suncoast and Florida through data.

When Eddy Macario, a Bradenton father and house painter, was arrested for driving without a license last spring, he spent a month in Charlotte County jail before being sentenced and fined. But instead of walking free afterward, he was transferred to custody of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE).

Macario’s wife, who has liver cirrhosis and is in need of an organ transplant, struggled to pay the bills with the family breadwinner absent for months. Macario was released from ICE detention in early October, according to WSLR.

Oscar Romero Santos, another Bradenton father and a business owner, wasn’t as lucky. After his arrest for driving without a license in July, his wife paid a bond, expecting him to be released. Instead, he was detained by ICE and later deported to Honduras.

That’s similar to what happened to Maria Martinez, a recent college graduate in North Port this summer. Her family paid a bond for her release on a charge of driving without a license in May. The 22-year-old chose to self-deport after weeks in ICE detention, WSLR reported.

They are among the thousands of immigrants who have been transferred from jails and prisons across Florida into ICE facilities since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

The tool behind this pipeline is called a detainer: a request by the federal agency to state and local law enforcement to hold individuals who are not U.S. citizens for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release for possible detention and deportation.

ICE detainers date back decades; however their use has spiked nationwide amid Trump’s mass deportation push, particularly in Florida, where all county sheriffs have cooperation agreements with ICE and the state is doling out millions of dollars for local law enforcement agencies to conduct immigration enforcement.

“ICE detainers [are] one of the main ways that ICE is able to get masses of people into these detention centers so quickly,” said Nery Lopez, a Florida-based organizer with Detention Watch Network, a national advocacy coalition focused on immigration detention.

Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis say they are targeting dangerous criminals in the immigration crackdown. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Bradenton on Oct. 20 to announce the arrests of four immigrants accused of serious crimes, including homicide and sexual assault.

But many people with nonviolent or pending charges are being caught in the wide net of ICE detainers.

“There has been a right-wing narrative that they're only detaining the worst of the worst,” said Lopez. “That is not the case at all. They are detaining people at traffic lights where this is their first time being detained.”

When asked about such cases, Noem rejected the idea that any offense should be considered minor, saying even seemingly low-level violations can have serious consequences. “We have laws,” she said. “We don’t get to pick which ones matter and which ones don’t.”

Here’s a look at how ICE is tapping jail and prison populations statewide as the agency pursues Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

ICE detainers aren’t new, but their use has surged since Trump took office.

ICE issued over 130,000 detainers to jails and prisons nationwide between Trump’s inauguration and late July. That’s a 65% increase, but in Florida the increase was greater. ICE detainers here more than doubled compared with the same period last year, according to a Suncoast Searchlight analysis of federal data.

Daniela Gomez, a criminal and immigration attorney in Bradenton, said she’s seen more ICE holds this year than in her previous four years of practice. Typically, a defendant doesn’t even know they have an ICE detainer and aren’t informed by the court, she said.

Florida ranks third behind Texas and California in total detainers but saw a sharper increase than either state compared with the same period last year.

The detainers spike is fueled not only by political demands, but with money.

Trump’s spending plan adds $75 billion over four years to ICE’s current annual budget of about $10 billion per year, and Florida’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement has released over $14 million to counties and cities for immigration-related work — with more to come. The state funds include reimbursements for jail beds used for ICE holds.

Turner Guilford Knight Jail in Miami ranks No. 1 in Florida ICE detainers. 

From Trump’s inauguration through late July, more than 1,700 ICE detainers were issued to Miami’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, which is among the largest jails in Florida, located in the county with the highest share of immigrants in the nation.

That’s a thousand more detainers than in the same period last year. It’s also a stark contrast to 12 years ago, when Miami-Dade County stopped honoring ICE detainers altogether.

In 2013, the county commissioners found that holding inmates for ICE had cost $2 million over seven years, and voted to stop footing the bill, according to WLRN. That stance lasted until the first Trump administration, when the president issued an executive order to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary” cities. The Miami-Dade commissioners took up the issue of ICE detainers again in 2017 and reversed their vote.

ICE detainers have doubled at most Florida jails.

While TGK had the most detainers overall, many local jails saw far steeper percent increases during the second Trump administration. As federal authorities cast a statewide net for immigration enforcement, detainers surged in many counties that previously saw limited ICE activity.

Sumter County, whose jail sits about an hour west of Orlando, logged just 10 ICE detainers from Jan. 20 through late July 2024. Over the same period this year, it logged 129 ICE detainers — a more than 1,000% increase.

Immigrants in rural areas are more vulnerable because they often lack the organized community networks that help residents in cities like Miami and Tampa share warnings and support, Lopez said.

Fewer than 10 local jails had a decrease in detainers this year, all of which had fewer than 20 in either period.

In Florida, a majority of ICE detainers led to ICE detention within months. That wasn’t the case nationwide.

More than two-thirds of detainers issued in Florida after Jan. 20 led to ICE detention by late July. That’s a higher share than in the nationwide pool of detainers.

One reason for the difference? All Florida sheriffs have signed agreements to cooperate with ICE. Only three detainers were declined in the Sunshine State during that period, but nationwide, law enforcement agencies declined over 8,500 requests.

Immigration advocates said the rise in immigration detention is making it harder for families to survive.

“It’s horrible,” said María Bilbao, Florida campaigns coordinator for American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker social justice advocacy organization. “Most of [those detained] are men, so we are seeing a lot of mothers that are being left with the kids.”

Bilbao leads a group of volunteers that visits an ICE administrative site in Broward County weekly to provide resources, including basic needs, to immigrants navigating the system or whose loved ones have been detained.

About a quarter of ICE detainers in Florida were still active as of late July. For people who are still serving criminal sentences or who are ineligible for, or can’t pay, a bond, the detainers could still result in a transfer to ICE custody in the future.

Gomez said she often cautions undocumented clients against paying bond because doing so can lead to an immediate transfer to ICE detention.

“They spend their money, and then it turns out that was a waste, and now they're stuck in there for an indefinite period of time,” she said.

Most ICE Detainers Are Issued for People from Latin America and the Caribbean

The vast majority of people with ICE detainers in Florida and nationwide since Trump’s inauguration had citizenship in Latin American and Caribbean countries.

In Florida, that share — 96% — closely reflects the portion of the undocumented population from those regions, which the nonpartisan think tank Migration Policy Institute estimated to be 92% in 2023.

The largest share of detainers in Florida jails and prisons were for Mexican citizens — about a quarter of all requests. Nationwide, detainers for Mexican citizens represented close to half of the total.

Lopez said she’s been telling immigrants where she lives to avoid driving unless they have to. And that knowing their rights is crucial, even if just driving to work.

“The biggest fear in this moment for a lot of communities,” she said, “is that anybody can be next.”

This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.