immigration detention

A new directive from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, issued in secrecy, bars local law enforcement agencies across Florida from answering questions about their role in immigration enforcement, raising concerns about transparency and whether public records are being lawfully observed.

The federal government is offering local law enforcement incentives to join a program that gives their officers authority to make immigration arrests. Police leaders say the funds, which include money for salaries, equipment and vehicles, are enticing.

The Associated Press found one new ICE hire had filed for bankruptcy twice and worked for six law enforcement agencies in three years. Another was accused of lying in a police report to justify a felony charge against an innocent woman. A third quit his only prior policing job after three weeks.

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.

"To be housing ICE detainees in a detention camp in the middle of the Everglades … without making sure that they have enough access to nutritious food and the ability to sleep and have access to counsel — everything about this screams inhumane and unnecessary," U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, told reporters.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is reviewing plans to convert warehouses into detention facilities for immigrants. Immigration officials have spent over $1 billion on 11 warehouses. Many locations face community backlash and legal challenges.

Since March 2025, at least 15 Florida public universities and colleges, including the University of Florida and Florida State College at Jacksonville, have signed memorandums of agreement for their campus police departments to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In the first seven months of President Donald Trump's second term, authorities arrested and detained parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children — a number that, if the pace held up, will have roughly doubled by now. That’s an average of more than 50 U.S. citizen kids a day with a parent pulled into detention.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said his agency has been consistent on immigration enforcement as other Florida sheriffs made headlines expressing opinion that some enforcement has gone too far.

Florida is finally eligible for a $608 million federal grant to help pay for the state’s migrant lockups after the Trump administration lifted an environmental funding hold that had stalled the dollars for months.

Florida lawmakers approved significant new guardrails Friday for the multibillion-dollar emergency fund that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration used to construct and operate the sprawling immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

On "The Florida Roundup," Eve Samples with Friends of the Everglades discussed the organization's lawsuit against the state for "Alligator Alcatraz" and more.