From April 21-26, Florida deputized local law enforcement agencies to arrest 1,120 immigrants, 37% of which had no criminal record, in a brutal assault called “Operation Tidal Wave.”
It was the largest immigration enforcement operation in Florida’s history, and the most arrests ever recorded in a single state in one week. The operation was a unique effort in that it was a collaboration between federal, state and local law enforcement, with Governor Ron DeSantis mandating that all 67 of Florida’s counties must cooperate with ICE to carry out this assault.
What’s not unique about this operation is that Florida is once again being used as a testing ground for the rightwing’s most destructive policies. Washington plans to expand Operation Title Wave-like programs across the country.
This vicious anti-immigrant policy has sparked a wave of militant struggle around the state defending Florida’s immigrants and their rights.
DeSantis wants Florida to be ‘the tip of the spear’
The Trump administration has aggressively expanded the 287(g) program of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which deputizes local law enforcement to identify, process and detain immigrants. The majority of 287(g) agreements are in Florida, where all of the state’s 67 counties have partnered with ICE. On April 28, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) described the operation as not only a first of its kind partnership, but also “a preview of what is to come around the country.”
More partnerships of ICE with other branches of law enforcement are unfolding. On May 9, Trump issued a proclamation stating that by July 8, there will be an intensive deportation campaign “strikingly similar” to Operation Tidal Wave. This effort will unite DHS forces with state and local law enforcement from across the country (Florida law enforcement already makes up 10% of those mentioned in the proclamation). Governor Ron DeSantis expressed his eagerness to mobilize state law enforcement to make Florida the “tip of the spear” in the Trump’s administration’s assault on immigrants.
Other regressive policies were tested first in Florida
For years Florida’s regressive policies have served as blueprints for broader crackdowns on the working class. DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill and the draconian anti-protest bill were not isolated acts of repression – they were replicated by other red states seeking to crush dissent and scale back rights won through struggle.
The reactionary state legislatures in southern states and the lack of resources for southern LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and workers have shaped the South into an instrumental tool for the far-right. The Trump administration views states like Florida as playgrounds where they can operate unchecked with minimal resistance against their assaults.
Unfortunately for Trump and his billionaire backers, attacks orchestrated against Floridian immigrant families have instead galvanized people across the state into major protests.
The South’s workers have something to say
When Heidy Sánchez Tejeda, a Cuban mother with no criminal record, was abducted in April and separated from her husband and child, hundreds took to the streets of Tampa alongside her family to demand her immediate return. “They never gave me the option to take my daughter,” Heidy told NBC News. Her daughter, who was born in the U.S., was still breastfeeding and suffering from seizures when separated from her mother. On Heidy’s first Mother’s Day without her daughter the Tampa community organized a vigil commemorating her and all families that have been ripped apart by ICE’s brutal family separation policies.
All around the state, people are not only resisting these deportations, but organizing themselves to end them. When Luis Carlos Jose Marcano and Frengel Reyes, two Venezuelan immigrants, were detained in February during a routine immigration appointment, hundreds of protestors swarmed Tampa’s ICE office.
When DeSantis, former DHS Director Chad Wolf, and “Border Czar” Tom Homan came to Sarasota’s New College to discuss immigration policy hundreds gathered outside to protest Trump and DeSantis’ deportation efforts.
When international student Felipe Zapata Velásquez was abducted in March by ICE during a traffic stop, University of Florida students marched on the administrative building to demand that the university defend their students from these state-sanctioned kidnappings.
Though communities in the South are often painted by politicians as “backwards,” workers who live there have and will continue to storm the streets when their rights are violated. Floridians will not allow our state to be a playground for the DHS and ICE. The rightwing ruling class wants to set a precedent of oppression, but we are setting a precedent of resistance!
