by Ethan Maia de Needell, coordinator with the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative
ICE is here in Alahua County. They have been since February, and hundreds of families in our community have already been traumatized and separated.
However, in Florida our neighbors are not being taken by the same masked agents we see raiding cities like Chicago and Portland.
In our state, people are being disappeared into the immigrant detention and deportation system every day by local and state law enforcement agencies (LEA) that have formed a partnership with ICE, a.k.a. “287(g) agreements.” Florida leads the country in the number of 287(g) agreements local and state LEAs have signed – and it’s not close (see tinyurl.com/Iguana2302).
In our county alone, five out of six local law enforcement agencies have signed this agreement, including the University of Florida Police Department and the Santa Fe College Police Department.
As of this writing, the Gainesville Police Department remains the only LEA in our county not to have signed. Also as of this writing, Florida state law only mandates LEAs that run a prison to have a 287(g) agreement, which applies to all 67 sheriff’s offices. All other state and local LEAs have signed on out of either pressure from Governor DeSantis, or out of a desire to assist in ICE’s immigration “enforcement.”
The vast majority of immigrants taken in Alachua County is by the Florida Highway Patrol (FHP), whose entire agency of nearly 2,000 officers have been given the credentials to carry out ICE actions, as well as funding for a separate, immigration enforcement-focused task force, according to Spectrum News 13 (tinyurl.com/Iguana2303).
Over half of ICE arrests throughout Florida are carried out by FHP, and this new type of relationship between a state LEA and ICE serves as a model both President Trump and Governor DeSantis have expressed interest in replicating across the country.
When that partnership is with Highway Patrol, traveling anywhere in Florida as an immigrant is cause for concern as FHP now turns a mundane traffic stop into an ICE arrest. According to the State’s own data, over 5,000 immigrants have been arrested in Florida since August. How many of these 5,431 people were affiliated with a gang? 34, (0.51%), according to Spectrum News 13.
Once an immigrant is taken to a local prison, ICE gets alerted. If not already done by the agency who took them in, ICE will send a request to the prison to hold the detainee for up to 48 hours, regardless of whether bond has been posted.
This gives them time to coordinate transportation to take them to a detention center.To introduce another layer that won’t be explored here, both the transportation to, and security of, these sites is provided in no small part by private companies like the GEO Group (which also happens to be a big funder for a superpac supporting Governor DeSantis), according to Spectrum News 13.
Florida is also leading the way in creating, in partnership with the Federal government, its own detention centers – more aptly named concentration camps – like the infamous “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Just 45 minutes away from Gainesville is its recently opened sister site for North Florida: Baker Correctional Institution.
These sites, besides having notoriously terrible conditions (reported to include overcrowding, lack of food, worms in food, mosquitoes and other insects, flooding, infrequent access to medication, infrequent showers, bright fluorescent lights that never turn off, etc. (see tinyurl.com/Iguana2304)), help increase the pace of disappearances thanks to their limited-to-nonexistent accessibility to attorneys, faith leaders, representatives, media, and the public, as well as their proximity to airports.
To be clear, those being taken from our communities are not the gang members and violent criminals we are told over and over they are. Most have no criminal record and some have even had valid driver’s licenses and varying forms of status (see tinyurl.com/Iguana2305).
These are our neighbors on their way to work, people who have lived in and contributed to their communities for many years, and even parents on their way to pick up their child from school.
If that disturbs you, I would ask that you turn your attention here to our own community. Though ICE has not yet attempted to interrogate or remove a child at our schools, our district has created a guidance so unnecessarily acquiescent to ICE, as to put the rights of all our children at risk of far worse.
As it is currently worded, the guidance would allow someone claiming to work with ICE to enter a public school without being required to identify themselves, question and detain a child without a warrant, and all without letting the parents know or consent. This guidance is something Superintendent Patton can change tomorrow if she wanted — she could even use examples from other Florida districts like Polk County, Lee County, Santa Rosa County; or the guidance provided by the Florida Education Association, who reached out with concern over Alachua County School District’s weak guidance (see tinyurl.com/Iguana2306).
All state some version of what our local community has been calling for since February:
Agents must positively identify themselves
Agents must show a signed, judicial warrant for the child
School District legal counsel must review the validity of the warrant
Anything else puts children in Alachua County, regardless of citizenship status, needlessly at risk. Having this guidance in place would not risk interfering with law enforcement, as the School District has argued, but would rather ensure the law is being followed and our children’s basic rights are adequately protected
If you are not okay with what is happening, GET INVOLVED. Tell our school board and superintendent that this is unacceptable. Join the Gainesville Immigrant Neighbor Inclusion Initiative (GINI)’s campaign to get the Alachua County School District to revise its guidance TODAY.
You can also make an impact by donating to the local Immigrant Safety Fund, which helps secure access to legal representation, bond, and assists with other legal fees for families experiencing separation.
If you have questions or would like to get more involved, please reach out to GINI@rwhp.org. Because when immigrant rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!