ICE Detainers

A day after a protest rally in Fort Myers decried the alleged housing of immigration and customs enforcement agents at area hotels, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the arrest of an undocumented immigrant who allegedly assaulted an ICE agent in Fort Myers Aug. 19.

Since taking over in March, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has pivoted from the confrontational style of immigration enforcement of his predecessor, Kristi Noem. The latest data is reflective of a strategy that is working

Across Florida, law enforcement officers have been asked to gather names, photographs, addresses and other personal information about people they suspect may be in the country without authorization and upload them to a centralized surveillance database during the course of their routine job duties.

A food distribution event organized by the SWFL Coalition for Democracy at the New Image Tabernacle Church in North Fort Myers on Friday and Saturday served more than 150 people.

Trump’s immigration crackdown has met with fierce resistance in Democratic-led sanctuary cities, where police are forbidden from assisting and many locals view the masked federal agents as an invading force. That hasn’t been the case in Republican-led Florida, though, where about 350 state and local agencies have signed on to take part in the crackdown. Although Florida immigration arrests have more than tripled during Trump's second term, the surge has largely flown under the public’s radar, as many start as run-of-the-mill police traffic stops, the public seems more supportive of the initiative, and participating state and local agencies are roundly rejecting requests for arrest records and body camera video at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security.

A lawyer says guards severely beat and pepper-sprayed detainees at a state-run immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida Everglades. A lawyer for two of the detainees says the beating happened after they complained about not having phone access on April 2. The lawyer says the guards taunted and then attacked the detainees. Guards punched one of her clients in the face and broke another detainee's wrist. Phone service was restored the next day without explanation. The allegations are detailed in a court filing accusing officials of not complying with a judge's order to provide proper phone access for legal calls.

After the Sarasota County School Board voted 3–2 to reaffirm its cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, uncertainty remains over how immigration enforcement would actually be carried out on school campuses. The resolution, approved despite hours of emotional public opposition, does not spell out what documentation agents would need to enter schools, whether judicial warrants would be required for non-public areas, or who would make those decisions.

The government's focus on perceived illegal immigration has reached a new high as over 65,000 people are being held in ICE Detention Centers, surpassing previous records.

A report released Wednesday by Amnesty International alleges cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at two immigration detention centers in Florida: The Everglades Detention Facility (“Alligator Alcatraz”) in eastern Collier County and the Krome North Service Processing Center ("Krome") in Miami.

Seven years ago, during the first administration of President Donald Trump, children were taken from their families the moment they crossed the border into the United States. Under a policy of zero tolerance for illegal crossing, Customs and Border Protection officers detained adults while children were sent into the federal shelter system. The aim: to deter other families from following. But after widespread public outcry and a lawsuit, the administration ended it. Today, family separations are back, only now they are happening all across the country.