Earlier this spring, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) allowed state and local police to be deputized to carry out select federal immigration duties under the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Section 287(g). The Trump administration has encouraged the use of nonfederal police to help with immigration-related tasks as it seeks to deport illegal immigrants.

In the past, Florida Highway Patrol troopers who pulled over a vehicle with illegal immigrants would have contacted federal immigration authorities to let them know about the traffic stop, but they would not have been able to bring those people to federal agents. Now, they can transport illegal immigrants to federal authorities, creating a law enforcement pipeline of new immigrant detainees.

In a matter of hours during the Washington Examiner ride-along, troopers apprehended 20 illegal immigrants found during eight traffic stops.

“I was informed by Border Patrol that all 20 of the illegal aliens that we brought in for processing were all going to be transferred to Alligator Alcatraz for further processing,” FHP Sgt. Tony Kingery wrote in a statement following the ride-along.

Since the state trooper operation began in March, 3,300 illegal immigrants have been picked up on the street through traffic stops and turned over to federal police to go through deportation proceedings, an FHP spokesman told the Washington Examiner.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes account of how Florida police officers are helping President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operation.

Troopers hit the streets

A crew of troopers and Border Patrol agents gathered inside a gated government facility parking lot before 7 a.m. local time to discuss the day’s operations.

That location, as well as the names, faces, license plates, and other identifiable information, was withheld by the Washington Examiner to protect privacy.

Federal and state police who left earlier in the morning had already made two traffic stops that resulted in 11 illegal immigrants detained.

Michelle R. Suskauer, former president of the Florida Bar and a criminal defense lawyer, questioned whether involving state troopers in immigration work was appropriate, given that it could divert them from traditional work and raise possible civil liberties concerns.

“The use of state highway patrol officers and county sheriffs under programs like 287(g) to assist federal immigration enforcement raises important questions about public safety priorities, legal safeguards, and the effective use of state resources,” Suskauer wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

7:23 a.m.: The gas station call

The Washington Examiner rode along with Kingery, a Navy veteran and 25-year state trooper on the criminal interdiction unit.

Kingery said troopers were still focused on carrying out the same traffic stops around the state that they have always done but that now a driver or passenger determined to be an illegal immigrant could be turned over to federal police rather than released after an encounter.

Less than 10 minutes into the ride, Kingery’s cellphone rang with the “Bad Boys” theme song to “Cops” as the ringtone. A voice on the other end told him to come by a nearby gas station where a trooper had pulled over a white van that had cut across three lanes to make a last-minute turn. The middle passenger was found not wearing a seat belt.

The three appeared to have been headed to a work site. The driver provided a temporary Florida driver’s license to the officer. 

The trooper asked all three in the van if they were U.S. citizens. All three stated that they were not.

“We have a Border Patrol agent that’s on his way over here that’s going to confirm everybody and do checks to make sure that they’ve gone through the process and that they’re here legally,” Kingery said.

Border Patrol agents arrived on the scene and spoke with the two men and a boy in Spanish. 

The 15-year-old boy was identified as Guatemalan, and the police confirmed that he had been smuggled across the southern border before being released to an adult in Florida, where he works a summer job. The two men were taken into Border Patrol custody because of their immigration status.

8:10 a.m.: The dump truck

Another trooper stopped a dump truck outside of a tool store after he observed that the middle passenger was not wearing a seat belt and the dump truck’s cover was not pulled fully across the back to prevent its load from spilling out of the top.

“All it is is just straight up 100% laziness of not wanting to have to climb up there and pull that cover out to cover the load,” Kingery said.

The driver and two passengers were identified by the officer on the scene as illegal immigrants. One man had a DUI conviction and had previously been deported. The detained driver was determined not to have a driver’s license and to have previously lost his privilege to operate a motor vehicle in Florida.

But Border Patrol is given the first right of refusal and requested that all three be brought in.

8:31 a.m.: The family pleads

A few blocks away, a trooper had pulled over a second dump truck. The driver’s family members were already on site when the Washington Examiner pulled in. Several of the family members had tears running down their faces as they spoke with the man in the trooper’s car and pleaded with the troopers not to take him in.

“They pull for the heartstrings,” Kingery said.

The officer had observed that the dump truck’s back doors were open and swinging back and forth while the truck was going down the road.

“Imagine us right now driving in a pickup truck, and that thing swings open,” Kingery said. “It’s going to hit the car right in the driver compartment. So that’s super, super dangerous, and that’s why he stopped them.”

The driver possessed only a Florida learner’s permit, which requires a licensed driver over the age of 21 to supervise. In this case, the passenger was a woman with a learner’s permit. The dump truck also had a broken brake light.

Border Patrol requested him. “Bring him over,” Kingery said, paraphrasing the federal agents.

8:53 a.m.: The fake ID

Our cruiser pulled into a department store parking lot where a young man had been pulled over for texting while driving. When the trooper asked the driver for a driver’s license and insurance, the man provided a plastic card that stated it had been issued by the Guatemalan Consulate in the United States. 

However, the Guatemalan Consulate does not make identification cards for Guatemalan citizens in the U.S., according to Kingery.

“It’s not a recognized government ID card,” Kingery said. “If they do a job and someone writes them a check, they need a way … to cash checks so they’ll get these cards. And last time I checked, they were charging them anywhere between $150 and $250 a card to make it for them.”

In addition to texting and driving, the driver faced a criminal charge for driving without a license, but after sending the driver’s information to Border Patrol, an agent told the officer to transport him to their facility.

Shortly after, a tow truck arrived and loaded the abandoned car to take it to an impound lot.

9:40 a.m. The ‘black box’

Landscapers have largely stopped allowing workers to ride in their trucks as they drive from one job site to the next, for fear it made them targets to troopers, according to Kingery, who added that troopers targeted vehicles for violations, not because they may be more likely to be carrying people without legal status.

Since the FHP’s crackdown this spring, troopers have observed processions of landscape workers in orange and green shirts driving in individual cars behind a truck to the next site, according to Kingery.

Kingery pulled over what he called a “black box,” a large pickup truck whose window tint was so dark that he could not make out how many people were inside.

The driver was a U.S. citizen woman. Kingery used a handheld device to measure the window tint and determined it was beyond the legal limit. He gave her a citation for the tinted windows.

10:05 a.m.: The failed escape

A large delivery truck weighed down by a mass of plants was pulled over in the parking lot of a garden center for what appeared to be darkly tinted windows, Kingery said the responding trooper told him.

Upon closer inspection, the windows were determined to be within the legal tint amount, but while the officer spoke with the driver, men in the back of the cab attempted to escape. The officer was able to detain the men in the back of his cruiser until additional troopers showed up.

The three landscape workers were determined to be illegally present in the U.S. and transported to the federal facility.

10:20 a.m.: The nervous driver

A few miles away, we were cruising down a one-lane road along beachside resorts and gated communities when Kingery hit the brakes to avoid hitting a car that had suddenly stopped in front of us at a pedestrian crosswalk, even though no pedestrians were around. 

“See, that’s nervousness,” Kingery said, referring to the driver’s behavior.

The female driver identified as Colombian and provided a temporary driver’s license and a federally issued employment authorization card, though the validity of the card could not be confirmed.

Border Patrol requested that she be brought in. The woman was allowed to call a friend to come pick up her car to avoid the financial headache of an impound.

“We’re trying to accommodate as much as possible,” Kingery said. “She was being very cooperative.”

The woman was walked to a trooper’s cruiser, placed inside, then taken to the federal facility.

Shortly after 11 a.m., Kingery lit up a BMW with an expired tag. The driver turned out to be a U.S. citizen and received a warning.

For the remaining two hours, Kingery continued around the region and pointed out where recent police chases of illegal immigrants had occurred.

1:00 p.m. The Alligator Alcatraz pipeline

The Washington Examiner arrived back at the federal facility where we started six hours earlier. Here, all 20 people brought in for further review by Border Patrol were determined to be deportable and will be sent in a matter of hours or days to Alligator Alcatraz, where immigration judges will decide their cases quickly.

FLORIDA LEADS STATES IN CARRYING OUT TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION MISSION

DeSantis approved the 3,000-person tent facility in the Everglades as a way to expand immigrant detention facilities. Alligator Alcatraz was given the nickname for the thousands of gators that lurk in the swamps surrounding the facility, which DeSantis quipped would serve as security to deter people from trying to escape.

Amy DeLaura contributed to this report.