Across the state, DeSantis has encouraged local and state law enforcement to actively help federal immigration agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by passing along suspected illegal immigrants encountered at traffic stops to federal authorities.

Since the state deputized a portion of the Florida Highway Patrol to help out in March, state troopers have encountered 3,300 illegal immigrants at traffic stops and turned them over to CBP and ICE, where they will go through deportation proceedings. A judge will determine if they are deported or released.

Those initially detained by federal immigration authorities are being taken to a recently erected facility that the state built in the Everglades. It is known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a name given to the 200,000 wild alligators that live in the surrounding swampland. The White House applauded this and other efforts by the DeSantis administration and called for more of them.

“‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is a state-of-the-art facility that will play a critical role in fulfilling the President’s promise to get the worst criminal illegal aliens out of America as fast as possible,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email. “President Trump is grateful to partner with [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem] and Florida officials on this important project, and our nation would be well-served by more facilities like this one.”

Trump unleashes mass deportation campaign

As President Donald Trump has acted to carry out the “largest-ever” deportation operation in national history, his administration has turned to states to help federal police arrest illegal immigrants across the country.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance touted plans as candidates to start arresting and deporting what they estimated to be 500,000 to 1 million illegal immigrants with criminal records.

In addition to criminals, the Trump administration wants to remove illegal immigrants, ordered by a judge to be deported. At last count, roughly 1.4 million people had been ordered deported but are still in the U.S., according to White House border czar Tom Homan.

The Trump administration has set up a detention site for illegal immigrants at Guantanamo Bay, used military cargo planes to fly immigrants out of the country, and highlighted its efforts in pictures posted on social media of hundreds of mugshots of illegal immigrants rounded up since Jan. 20.

Florida has been the most cooperative state in assisting the Trump administration in its mass deportation effort, and the state is seeing significant results from its efforts.

Florida helping feds with immigration operation

Shortly after Trump took office in late January, DeSantis unleashed his campaign to crack down on illegal immigrants residing in his home state.

Florida created a State Board of Immigration Enforcement and required local police to work with ICE to turn over illegal immigrants. Florida repealed a law that allowed illegal immigrant students to pay in-state tuition at state schools and made it illegal for someone without legal immigration status to enter the state from another state.

It also included nearly $300 million to train and outfit local police to help ICE arrest illegal immigrants. Officers who help ICE will receive bonuses.

In June, DeSantis announced took executive action to remake a mostly abandoned airfield in the Everglades into an immigrant detention site.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had proposed the project, touting that the tent facility would not require much of a barrier surrounding the site because if immigrants were to escape, “there’s not much waiting for them, other than alligators and pythons.”

It is now where illegal immigrants encountered by state and local police in Florida are being sent.

“Our Highway Patrol has done really heavy lifting on this really critical mission of ensuring that our country means something, that our laws mean something, that it’s not just whoever decides they want to Combe is able to come,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Wildwood on June 30. “It’s who we decide is able to come is allowed to come.”

Florida people are given more responsibility 

Historically, state police who pulled over a vehicle with drivers and passengers believed to be illegally in the country would have contacted Border Patrol or ICE to let them know about the traffic stop and see how to proceed, the Washington Examiner learned during a recent ride-along with FHP Sgt. Tony Kingery.

“In the past, we never dealt with it. If we stopped somebody and we had a carload of illegals, we would just make a phone call to Border Patrol, and because of their hand-tied policy back in the day, they would just ask us to provide them with their names and an address, and they would check up on them later,” Kingery said. “We never really did anything enforcement-wise.”

In February, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law legislation that allowed law enforcement in all 67 counties and state police to work directly with federal immigration agencies.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to include Section 287(g), which gave ICE the authority to delegate specific immigration officer duties to state and local police. Counties and states could opt in, but immigrants’ rights organizations strongly opposed it during the Biden administration.

If a person states that he or she is not a U.S. citizen or lacks documentation, the officer will contact local federal authorities to run the person’s identification. In some cases, immigrants encountered do not have any proof of identification or have illegitimate documents.

The state trooper will bring the individual to a regional federal facility where a more thorough examination can be done, including fingerprinting and document verification.

Troopers met this spring with federal police who shared maps of where to focus their traffic stops, areas with high populations of illegal immigrants.

“The eastern seaboard of Florida was completely covered. Like, you couldn’t even see behind the map,” Kingery said.

A DAY WITH FLORIDA STATE TROOPERS NABBING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FOR ‘ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ’

However, not all support Florida’s efforts, including Michelle R. Suskauer, a criminal defense attorney and former president of The Florida Bar.

“Ultimately, immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility,” Suskauer wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Deputizing local and state law enforcement for this role risks eroding public trust, particularly in immigrant communities who may grow fearful of engaging with police even when they are victims or witnesses to crime. That undermines the core purpose of policing, to serve and protect.”