ICE said its agents partnered with local law enforcement in Florida in an illegal immigration sweep dubbed Operation Tidal Wave.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, working in conjunction with local law enforcement in Florida, have arrested nearly 800 illegal immigrants across the state in the past four days, the agency announced on April 26.
While ICE has routinely conducted immigration enforcement operations throughout the United States, the agency referred to Florida’s effort, dubbed Operation Tidal Wave, as a “first-of-its-kind” effort pairing federal immigration authorities with state and local law enforcement resources.
In their April 26 press statement, ICE pitched other law enforcement agencies on the idea of working with the agency, linking to a page promoting the 287(g) program.
The 287(g) program grants local law enforcement agencies access to ICE resources and provides them with funding for immigration enforcement training. Participating law enforcement agencies may then identify and process removable illegal immigrants already booked in their jails and detention facilities, conduct some limited federal immigration functions during their routine police duties, and join ICE agents in serving arrest warrants.
“This is a warning to all criminal illegal aliens: We’re coming for you,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in an X post on April 26, coinciding with the arrest operations.
“[Department of Homeland Security], ICE, and our state partners will hunt you down, arrest, and deport you. That’s a promise.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also touted the arrest operations.
“Florida is leading the nation in active cooperation with the Trump administration for immigration enforcement and deportation operations!” the Republican governor wrote in an X post on April 26.
Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has ramped up illegal immigration arrest and deportation operations.
ICE reported arresting some 308 illegal immigrants on Trump’s first full day back in office in January.
Some ICE arrest and deportation efforts have focused on illegal immigrants and individuals accused of engaging in additional criminal activities or maintaining criminal affiliations while residing in the United States.
Recent deportation efforts have also targeted international students residing in the United States who have engaged in pro-Hamas terrorist group protests and activism, which federal authorities have argued crossed into support for terrorism.
Some of these deportation efforts have met with criticism and legal challenges. On April 23, a U.S. federal judge ordered the U.S. government to facilitate the return of a 20-year-old Venezuelan native to the United States after he was deported to El Salvador.
On April 25, the FBI also arrested Hannah Dugan, a state circuit judge from Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, on allegations she tried to obstruct and mislead immigration authorities seeking to arrest a previously deported Mexican national, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz. Ruiz was later arrested by federal agents “after a foot chase” outside the courthouse where he had appeared for domestic violence charges, the affidavit said.
On April 26, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, presiding in the Western District of Louisiana, raised due process concerns over federal authorities deporting an illegal immigrant Honduran woman who took her 2-year-old U.S. citizen child with her. Doughty ordered a May 16 hearing to examine the matter further.
An attorney for a Cuban-born woman named Heidy Sánchez also raised concerns on April 26 after Sánchez—who married a U.S. citizen while present in the country under a document known as an I-220B, which rendered her subject to removal and required her to make periodic check-ins with ICE officials—was deported from Florida last week.
Sánchez’s attorney, Claudia Cañizares, stated that Sánchez is the mother of a 1-year-old girl who is still breastfeeding. Cañizares said she filed to contest Sánchez’s deportation order on April 24 but learned her client had already been removed from the country.
