Florida's agriculture department detained 87 and moved 434 to ICE sites in 2025, records show

Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, an agency charged with keeping the state's food supply safe and investigating agricultural and consumer crimes, took 87 people into custody and transported 434 others to immigration detention sites in the second half of 2025 as part of its partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to records obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight and reported Oct. 30 by the Tampa Bay Times.

The data, covering June through December 2025, offer the first detailed look at how much of the department's law enforcement work has shifted toward federal immigration enforcement under Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. They arrive days before Simpson, a Republican, faces voters Tuesday in his bid for a second term.

What the records show

The pace picked up late in the year. The department took 46 people into custody in November and December alone, compared with 41 over the previous five months combined, and its officers transported 81 people to ICE detention sites in those final two months, the Times reported.

The figures break down this way:

The transport numbers, five times the agency's own detentions, show a role in immigration enforcement that extends well beyond the people its officers take into custody themselves.

An agriculture agency with a badge

The department enforces laws through its Office of Agricultural Law Enforcement, which has more than 200 sworn officers. Under a 287(g) agreement with ICE, trained officers can perform federal immigration enforcement duties while continuing their regular work and inspections.

Simpson announced in July 2025 that all of the office's sworn officers had been certified under the federal program. "Florida is serious about law and order, and this certification is another step forward," he said at the time, according to Florida Politics. "As a member of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, I've pushed for stronger coordination with our federal partners, and now our officers are even better equipped to take action when they encounter individuals breaking the law."

The records obtained by American Oversight tell a somewhat different story. As of October 2025, 173 agricultural officers had completed immigration training and received credentials, one had finished training but not received credentials, and 50 had neither completed training nor received credentials, the Times reported.

The training itself has changed. Nationwide, ICE shortened 287(g) training in March 2025 from four to five weeks of in-person instruction to 40 hours online. The Times asked the department whether 40 hours is enough to prepare its officers and whether immigration work has affected its regular duties. The agency did not respond.

Inspection stations turned checkpoints

The department's most visible tool is its network of agricultural inspection stations, where trucks and vehicles carrying farm products must stop so officers can check for pests, invasive species and unpermitted plants or animals. Florida operates 23 of them on 19 major highways at the state's entry and exit points, most along highways in North Florida.

In August 2025, after a fatal crash on Florida's Turnpike involving a tractor-trailer driver who was in the country illegally, Simpson and Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that officers at those stations would also screen for people in the country illegally who may be driving large trucks with out-of-state licenses, NBC Miami reported. Officers at the stations also check commercial drivers' English proficiency. A 24th station is being built near the Alabama line, on U.S. 231 in Jackson County, according to reports on its November 2025 groundbreaking.

Simpson and the farm economy

Simpson, a former Senate President and egg farmer, has rejected the argument that immigration enforcement will devastate Florida agriculture, which depends heavily on immigrant labor. "In Florida, the vast majority of our agriculture labor is H2A legal labor," he said in mid-2025, referring to the federal guest worker visa program. He added: "So just because you drive by a field of people that may not look like you, that does not mean they're illegal."

Critics see the department's role differently. Floridians count on the agency "to keep their food safe and protect their farms, not to take their loved ones away for immigration agents," Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said in a written statement to the Times. "Every one of those numbers represents a person whose life was upended, a family left worrying, and a community left wondering who could be next."

The Department of Homeland Security defended the partnerships. In an email to the Times, it said 287(g) agreements have helped lead to 40,000 arrests in Florida. "Partnerships with law enforcement are critical to having the resources we need to arrest criminal illegal aliens across the country," the department said.

Part of a statewide push

The agriculture department is one of several state agencies Gov. Ron DeSantis directed to deputize officers under 287(g) agreements in 2025. WFLX reported last November that investigators from the Department of Lottery, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the agriculture department were among those redirected to immigration work, while the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles accounted for 43% of suspected encounters statewide. At that point, state and local agencies had arrested nearly 5,300 people suspected of being in the country illegally, about 51% of them through 287(g) agreements, according to state data.

Thomas Kennedy, a policy analyst with a nonprofit focused on immigrants, told WFLX the use of state agencies was "very aggressive" and worried it would divert resources. "The consequence is traditional crimes, or everyday crimes, go unaddressed," he said.

The scale has grown since. A study by FWD.us, a nonprofit that advocates for changes to immigration and criminal justice policy, found more than 9,000 officers from 279 Florida agencies have been deputized to enforce federal immigration law, second only to Texas in participating agencies, the Times reported. As The Florida Press reported Oct. 30, ICE arrests in Florida nearly doubled this summer as local police working under 287(g) agreements took on a larger share of the work.

The state has also spent heavily. About a month ago, DeSantis and the State Board on Immigration Enforcement approved $88 million in grant requests and amendments for dozens of state and local agencies and detention sites. The state built the Everglades detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz, which opened in July 2025 and closed in late June 2026.

What's next

The records cover only 2025, and the department has not released figures for this year or answered questions about its officers' training and workload. Simpson is on Tuesday's ballot against a Democratic challenger, and the results will decide who directs the department's law enforcement office, and its role in immigration enforcement, for the next four years. The 24th inspection station near the Alabama line was expected to be finished in 2026, according to reports at its groundbreaking.