Florida ICE arrests nearly doubled this summer as local police under 287(g) deals do more of the work

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in Florida nearly doubled this summer compared with the spring, averaging more than 200 a day, and much of the increase traces back to state and local police working under mandatory 287(g) agreements, according to a WUSF analysis of federal data published Oct. 28. Florida recorded about 29,000 ICE arrests in 2026 through early August, second only to Texas, and more than half of the people detained had no criminal charge or conviction, WUSF reported. A separate national report from the advocacy group FWD.us found that Florida agencies made more 287(g) arrests than those in any other state.

What the data shows

The figures come from ICE records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by the Deportation Data Project, a research effort based at UC Berkeley and UCLA. The most recent data runs through Aug. 6, 2026. WUSF reporter Nancy Guan found that arrests in Florida have risen steadily since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, with a sharper jump in the summer months. A chart accompanying the analysis shows ICE arrests in the state roughly tripling between July 2025 and July 2026. Florida's total for all of 2025 was more than 20,000.

ICE does not publish the charge or conviction tied to each arrest, so the share of people with serious records has to be estimated from other sources. A Cato Institute analysis of leaked October 2025 data found that 5% of ICE detainees had violent convictions, and a New York Times analysis found that 7% of people arrested from January through October 2025 did. The administration has described its targets as the "worst of the worst."

Local police as the force multiplier

The shift in Florida mirrors a national change in tactics. Rather than large, visible operations like those in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, federal authorities increasingly rely on local officers deputized through Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The program dates to the 1990s but was little used until Trump's return. Its most common form today, the Task Force Model, lets police officers and sheriff's deputies make immigration arrests in the field, not just screen people already booked into jail.

The FWD.us report, released Oct. 28, found that more than 29,000 state and local officers were deputized by ICE between January 2025 and October 2026, more than the roughly 11,600 deportation officers ICE employs directly. The number of officers working with ICE doubled in the last eight months, and more than 1,850 agencies had signed on to the Task Force Model as of Oct. 1, up from none at the start of 2025.

The national numbers, as reported by FWD.us and NPR:

Together, Florida and Texas accounted for about half of all 287(g) arrests nationwide. FWD.us reported that Florida agencies have logged more than 1,000 287(g) arrests in nearly every month since September 2025, while Texas agencies were slower to ramp up until late spring 2026.

"These state and local officers are a key lever in the administration's quieter approach to enforcement," Felicity Rose, vice president of research and policy at FWD.us, told NPR. "They're trading what used to be splashy urban surges... for just routine highway stops now under the 287(g) program."

Why Florida leads

The difference in Florida is that participation is not optional. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 2C on Feb. 13, 2025, and state law now requires state agencies and county sheriff's offices to enter 287(g) agreements with ICE. On Feb. 24, 2025, the Florida Sheriffs Association announced that every county jail in the state had signed a written agreement with ICE, and many municipal police departments have since signed on as well. NPR reported that Florida has given hundreds of millions of additional dollars to law enforcement agencies in exchange for their participation.

Federal money is adding to that incentive. The Justice Department has offered $3 billion to state and local agencies that join the program, and participating agencies can receive funding for vehicles and equipment as long as they stay active in enforcement. FWD.us said the money appears to be a driving force behind the national surge. The Department of Homeland Security calls 287(g) a critical tool for reducing crime and illegal immigration.

It often starts with a traffic stop

In the cases WUSF has covered in which state or local officers stopped someone and transferred them to ICE, the most serious charge was usually a civil traffic violation. The station's related reporting has included a Hillsborough County father who was beaten during a traffic stop before being detained, a young Sarasota woman who chose voluntary departure to Mexico, and women struggling to support their families after partners were detained or deported.

That pattern is what advocates in the Tampa Bay area describe. Joseph Nohava, an organizer with the Tampa Immigrants Rights Committee, told WUSF that the group holds monthly "barrio walks," going door to door to share know-your-rights information, and that many people now stay home "unless they absolutely have to." "It would be impossible for ICE to do their job without help from local law enforcement," Nohava said.

How it fits the national picture

Florida is not alone in leaning on local officers, but it is the largest example. In Wyoming, deputized officers made 77% of the state's immigration arrests in April 2026, and in New Hampshire the program accounted for 60% of immigration arrests in June, according to FWD.us. Monthly 287(g) arrests nationwide reached 6,632 in July 2026. Because Florida built its system early and by statute, its agencies were already producing arrests at scale while most states were still signing agreements.

The data also highlights the limits of the "worst of the worst" description in Florida specifically: with more than half of those detained in the state lacking any criminal charge or conviction, a large share of the summer surge consists of people whose only contact with police was a stop on the road.

What's next

The Deportation Data Project's figures stop on Aug. 6, so the fall picture will not be clear until the next release of ICE records. FWD.us has said it expects more agencies nationally to join as the Justice Department's $3 billion in funding becomes available. In Florida, participation is set by state law rather than local choice, so any change in how sheriffs and police departments work with ICE would have to come from Tallahassee. Until then, the summer numbers suggest that for many immigrants in Florida, the most likely point of contact with ICE is no longer a federal agent but a local officer during a routine stop.