Advocates Report ICE Detentions in South Florida Amid Immigration Sweep

Immigration advocates noticed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices in South Florida were busier than usual this past weekend, following news that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was preparing for an immigration enforcement operation in Miami.

On Friday, New Times obtained emails indicating that DHS was gearing up for a 287(g) operation in Miami over the weekend. The emails revealed that a group of out-of-state deportation officers was headed to South Florida to assist Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Miami with the operation. No other details were provided aside from instructions for officers to equip themselves, much like the details on the streets in other U.S. cities.

While DHS never responded to New Times about the possibility of a large-scale immigration operation over the weekend, Yareliz Mendez-Zamora, a policy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a nonprofit dedicated to social justice, noticed a flurry of activity at the ICE field office in Miramar on Saturday. She saw several unmarked vehicles and vans from the private prison contractor GEO Group, which typically transport detainees, coming and going. Mendez-Zamora said an agent videotaped them as they stood outside the facility, documenting the vehicles as they departed.

Mendez-Zamora tells New Times that at least five Cuban men were detained during their office visits on Saturday. She says she spoke with five families whose loved ones were taken into custody that day. The families told her that the five men went to the facility for what they thought were their check-in appointments with immigration authorities.

“It was really sad to see just the families,” Mendez-Zamora says.

As part of President Donald Trump’s large-scale immigration crackdown, his administration has sent several ICE agents to cities across the country to ramp up deportations, including “Patriot 2.0” in Boston and “Midway Blitz” in and around Chicago. Just this week, DHS announced that 1.6 million illegal immigrants have self-deported, and another 527,000 have been deported under Trump’s second administration.

“This is just the beginning. President Trump and Secretary Noem have jump-started an agency that was hamstrung and barred from doing its job for the last four years,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a press release. “In the face of a historic number of injunctions from activist judges and threats to law enforcement, DHS, ICE and CBP, have not just closed the border but made historic strides to carry out President Trump’s promise of arresting and deporting illegal aliens who have invaded our country.”