More than 100 people were detained in one of Florida’s largest single-day immigration raids at a Tallahassee construction site on May 29 in what was described as a panicked scene with some law enforcement wearing face coverings and camouflage.
Homeland Security Investigations, which operates under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Florida Highway Patrol and other Florida and federal law enforcement agencies conducted the immigration raids at a student housing development site in the College Town neighborhood by Florida State University. Another construction site nearby was raided an hour earlier, worker Michael Martinez told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Officers reportedly checked every individual’s identification and permits before releasing or arresting them.
The Department of Homeland Security said on social media that authorities had “arrested more than 100 illegal aliens, some of which were previously deported and others with criminal backgrounds,” calling it “a targeted enforcement operation.”
People detained in a bus told reporters at the scene they were from Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras, while officials said others detained were from Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia.
The raids come as President Donald Trump‘s administration touts its crackdown on migrants who enter the country illegally, expanding arrests nationwide while driving down border crossings. ICE agents have begun detaining people who show up for mandatory court appearances about their immigration cases.
Florida Gov. Ron desantis and the Florida Legislature have pushed the state to become the “toughest” on illegal immigration in the country this year, enacting laws and directing hundreds of millions of dollars to state andlocal law enforcement to expand the state’s authorityto detain and house undocumented immigrants to comply with Trump’s mass deportation mandate.
ICE and Florida law enforcement arrested 1,120 people in April during “Operation Tidal Wave,” the largest joint immigration operation in Florida history. The operation lasted six days, from April 21 through April 26.
In the last month, ICE raids have also rattled Nashville, where nearly 200 people were arrested in a weeklong operationaccording to the Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. In northern Nevada, more than 50 were arrested in Reno, Carson City and Tahoe earlier in May and most have been deported, the Reno Gazette Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported.
Florida is currently appealing a federal judge’s decision to temporarily block a new lawcreating state crimes for undocumented immigrantsentering or re-entering Florida. The raid was likely the largest single illegal immigration sweep in Florida since DeSantis agreed to join in on Trump’s aggressive mass deportation agenda.
Here’s what we know about the ICE raids in Tallahassee, Florida:
Who was detained in Tallahassee, Florida, ICE raid?
Law enforcement officers detained more than 100 people at a construction site near the Florida State University campus.
One detainee, 43-year-old Juan Carlos Hernandez, told the USA TODAY Network-Florida he didn’t know where the group was being taken. Hernandez said he did not have a criminal record, and he said others on the bus had asylum cases.
“I’m sad,” he said. “It’s not the time or the moment for us to leave.”
Many of the construction workers were in bright yellow shirts and jeans – work clothes. Some didn’t have any money on them, Hernandez said, others were worried about their family members who they would be leaving behind.
Some of those detained were handcuffed, while others were zip-tied. They were led into the back of white school buses with no air conditioning on a day where the feels-like temperature was 86 degrees.
Pedro Arroliga, 30, held up his residency card and said he came from Nicaragua and has been a resident for two years. He said federal agents checked him inside the gate of the construction site and said he was OK to go, but then he was taken and put on the bus.
Martinez, the worker from the other job site nearby, said agents came and raided his construction site about an hour earlier. People were fleeing and only a few got caught.
“It’s just crazy how they’re doing this,” Martinez said.
‘Disturbing’ raid causes halt in city’s construction sites
Caity Salter, a recent Florida State University graduate, stood behind a fence with other FSU students watching the scene unfold.
“Some of the people, the construction workers, (were in) zip ties and they were in a line … and it was just very disturbing to see that,” she said.
Ray D’Amico, general superintendent for the plumbing contractor at the construction site, watched his employees, who were zip-tied and waiting to be processed by federal agents.
Once word got out about the raid, he said, other construction sites in town stopped for the day and workers went home.
Videos of laborers getting tackled to the ground by agents at 9 a.m. spread quickly, and by noon, many of Tallahassee’s construction sites were silent.
“This is infuriating. This is absolutely ridiculous,” D’Amico said.
How to locate detainees in custody? ICE inmate search
To locate detainees who are 18 or older and in ICE custody for more than 48 hours, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website has an online detainee locator system.
According to ICE, you don’t have to provide any information about yourself or create an account to use the system, but the system collects information including your internet domain, IP address and the internet address of the website from which you linked directly to the ODLS website.
However, ICE says the information is not used to identify or track users and isn’t used in immigration enforcement activities.
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY; C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY Network-Florida; Antonio Fins and Valentina Palm, Palm Beach Post
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