U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Florida law enforcement agencies announced over the weekend that they made nearly 800 arrests in a multiday immigration enforcement operation.
ICE touted “Operation Tidal Wave” as a “highly successful operation,” pointing to a unique partnership between local and federal authorities.
“In a first-of-its-kind partnership between state and federal partners, ICE Miami and Florida law enforcement arrested nearly 800 illegal aliens this week during the first four days of #OperationTidalWave — a massive, multi-agency, immigration enforcement crackdown,” ICE wrote in a post on its X account along with photos from the operation.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) also praised the joint effort in a post on the social platform Saturday, calling it “an example of FL and [the Department of Homeland Security] partnering to deliver big results on immigration enforcement and deportations.”
“Florida is leading the nation in active cooperation with the Trump administration for immigration enforcement and deportation operations!” DeSantis added in a separate X post.
The operation leans on ICE’s 287(g) program, which enables ICE to deputize local law enforcement agencies to help enforce federal immigration law.
ICE, in its post on X, encouraged other local law enforcement to consider partnering with the agency in the future.
The agency has in the past faced vocal resistance from leaders of some cities who have sought to welcome migrants and criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The operation comes as the White House steps up immigration enforcement efforts across the country, fulfilling a key campaign promise by President Trump while stoking pushback over multiple deportation cases in which critics have questioned the due process afforded to removal targets.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons touted the partnership with local officials in Florida over the past week, telling ABC News, “I think the main reason why this operation is significant is because it’s the first of its kind.”
“It’s one that not only we’ve been doing what we have, but we have surged all our federal partners together along with Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement [and] Removal Operations, which are all the enforcement arms of ICE, but we’re also using all our 287(g) partners in the state of Florida. We’re using state, local and county law enforcement agencies to assist us in our operations,” he continued.
“So this is one of the first large-scale missions we’ve done like this ever,” Lyons added. “We brought a ‘whole the government’ approach with cooperative jurisdictions that want to help ICE secure communities in neighborhoods and remove public safety threats from our neighborhoods.”