In Florida, Operation Tidal Wave, which held more than 1,000 migrants for five days, was called the “new normal.” And not just for Florida, but for the whole country.
At a news conference in Tampa on May 12, Larry Keefe, executive director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, said that within the next 60 days, the federal government will try to use a method of mass deportation that is “strikingly similar” to Operation Tidal Wave.
“The techniques, the methods … will be the standard that our brother and sister states apply in the effort,” he told us.
The speaker, Keefe, showed off a 37-page paper that he called the “Florida blueprint” for deporting a lot of people. It was his words that the State of Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan would serve as a “model.”
“Operation Tidal Wave” was a week-long operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Florida police, and the Department of Homeland Security to target places with lots of immigrants. More than 1,100 people were arrested because of it, including a man who had never been in trouble with the law and had just played Jesus in his church’s Easter play.
The Miami Herald looked at records and found that the government wanted to jail 800 people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, as well as in the towns of Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Stuart, Tallahassee, and Fort Myers.
On May 9, President Donald Trump signed an order that started “Project Homecoming”: “Either leave the United States voluntarily, with the support and financial assistance of the federal government, or remain and face the consequences,” it says.
In the proclamation, on July 8, the Secretary of Homeland Safety “shall supplement existing enforcement and removal operations by deputising and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former federal officers, officers and personnel within other federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers in order to conduct an intensive campaign to remove illegal aliens who have failed to depart voluntarily.”
Director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Dave Kerner, said that 1,800 Florida Highway Patrol troopers have been given the authority to execute 287(g). This means that Florida already has 10% of the 20,000 officers named in the proclamation working for the police.
“If you see a state trooper, he or she has federal authority to detain, investigate, apprehend and deport,” he said. He also said that the Florida Highway Patrol has helped arrest or been the main agency in the arrest of over 1,020 aliens who were in the country illegally.
Florida is leading the country, but other states need to do more, said Gov. Ron DeSantis at the event in Tampa. “There may be a lot of somersaults along the way by some of these guys; there may be some gnashing of teeth for some people in the process,” he said. “But I imagine we’re going to land basically where we need to land as a state.”