Miami Police Have Become a Show-Me-Your-Papers Patrol Despite Public Opposition

South Florida has emerged as a hotspot in immigration enforcement nationwide. A recent analysis by The New York Times found that Florida is outpacing other states in immigration arrests, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in Miami averaging about 120 arrests a day.

This is happening without the militarized-style raids we have seen in other parts of the country, such as Minneapolis, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The high propensity of immigration arrests in the state is instead a result of cooperation between local law enforcement and federal agencies, through 287(g) contracts.

Since Gov. Ron DeSantis took office in 2019, he has signed into law a series of bills mandating that certain municipalities enter into these police-ICE collaboration agreements. Current state law, as required by statute 908.11, says that a “sheriff or the chief correctional officer operating a county detention facility must enter into a written agreement with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement to participate in the immigration program established under s. 287(g).” Many municipalities that do not fit into this category have still opted to sign on after the DeSantis administration and Florida’s unelected Attorney General James Uthmeier threatened to remove local elected officials who refuse to go along with their immigration crackdowns.

The result is a state in which immigration enforcement is pervasive. The Florida Lottery, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and even public university police departments have signed on to these police-ICE agreements. The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) has been the most overzealous in this role, committing thousands of immigration arrests in the last few months after DeSantis announced a partnership between the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles agency and ICE under 287(g), which authorized FHP troopers to question people about their immigration status during traffic stops. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission — an agency traditionally tasked with enforcing laws regarding hunting, fishing, boating safety, and habitat protection — has recently seen itself reoriented toward immigration enforcement tasks. Ninety percent of its personnel — 800 of its nearly 890 law enforcement officers — have been deputized under 287(g) and given a training so lackluster that an officer said they felt like a “newborn giraffe with wobbly legs trying to make its way around.”

The Florida Lottery, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, and even public university police departments have signed on to these police-ICE agreements.

This is not a dynamic relegated solely to Florida. Other Republican-led states have adopted similar approaches to integrate state-run immigration enforcement systems. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 4 into law in 2023, making unauthorized entry into Texas a state crime. This effectively empowers state judges to order deportation and turns state police into a de facto arm of immigration enforcement, similar to what happens in Florida with FHP and other local police departments. Texas law enforcement also has widespread ICE cooperation agreements, moving immigration enforcement from federal agents into state and local systems. These policies are an overt attempt to create a parallel state immigration system, which functions in cooperation with the federal government when restrictive migration management aligns, as is the case with the Trump administration, but serves to continue detaining and deporting people when these goals diverge.

Florida’s State Board of Immigration Enforcement database also shows that the City of Miami Police Department has been aggressive in asking Floridians to show their papers. According to the data, Miami is the 11^th-highest reporting department in the state for “encounters” with immigrants. It is just behind the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a police agency that has made its dedication to mass deportation under the direction of the DeSantis administration very clear.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has recently seen itself reoriented toward immigration enforcement tasks. Ninety percent of its personnel have been deputized under 287(g).

Immigrants in Miami have been hit hard by the policies of the Trump administration, which has de-documented thousands upon thousands of people. Two major immigrant groups in the region are impacted by the revocation of temporary protected status (TPS), leaving them vulnerable due to the loss of legal status. Over 600,000 Venezuelans faced losing TPS in 2025, with over half residing in Florida, while planned terminations for roughly 350,000 Haitians are subject to ongoing legal challenges. Cubans are also being affected in record numbers: More than 1,600 Cubans were deported in 2025, about double the number of Cubans who were deported in 2024. Immigration enforcement has broad implications for communities in the state, as 722,000 mixed-status families are estimated to reside in Florida.

The current status quo in the City of Miami is the result of the disastrous and irresponsible decision by its commissioners to sign a 287(g) agreement last year, despite overwhelming opposition from the local community. That has led to political consequences for the city’s political class, as elections late last year saw commissioners who voted to enter the 287(g) contract thrown out of office and the first Democratic mayor, Eileen Higgins, elected after nearly 30 years of GOP control. Higgins has gone on record to say she will sign legislation undoing the city’s ICE agreement if commissioners choose to exit it. “I would happily sign it,” Higgins told the Miami Herald, while noting that she would not bring the proposal herself, calling instead for commissioners to take initiative on the matter.

Despite this, Higgins and Miami commissioners are playing hot potato with the issue and avoid taking action, presumably to avoid a confrontation with the DeSantis administration. No item has been introduced to vote on the agreement, or even allow public comment on the matter. Meanwhile, the City of Miami Police acts as a show-me-your-papers patrol. This is clear in the data put out by Florida’s own dashboard tracking immigration enforcement encounters. City of Miami officials should first clarify the data and why so many of its police officers are registering enforcement-related encounters with immigrants. When voting in favor of Miami entering its 287(g) agreement, Commissioner Ralph Rosado said that the city was in a “position of leadership” and that it could be “the model” that “other cities should follow our lead so that everybody is treated as fairly as possible.” We now see what that model is: a city of immigrants that has used its police force to harass and detain people based on their immigration status.

There’s real public opposition to these “show me your papers” policies. The initial vote taken by Miami commissioners to enter the 287(g) agreement was met with almost seven hours of public testimony against it. The meeting had to accommodate resident participation by setting up an outdoor overflow area due to the city hall itself being at capacity. Florida International University, which is located within Miami-Dade County, has seen activism from students and faculty against its police department signing a 287(g) agreement that not only allows its police force to conduct immigration enforcement, but also explicitly empowers officers to transport individuals to detention centers like “Alligator Alcatraz.”

This activism has borne fruit and has helped to stop new 287(g) agreements from being signed. A lawsuit filed by the city of South Miami sought legal clarification on whether it was subject to a mandate to establish police-ICE collaboration. The suit was dismissed for lack of legal standing, but attorneys representing the DeSantis administration acknowledged during oral arguments that the state does not require every municipality to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE. In another instance, the municipality of Miami Shores deferred signing on to a 287(g) after resident opposition. Both South Miami and Miami Shores, along with other municipalities across the state, continue to operate without signing on to these agreements.

The City of Miami has the popular mandate, the political cover, and the law on its side if it chooses to rescind its police-ICE collaboration agreement. What it lacks is the political will, inaction that has real consequences for immigrants who interact with its police force. Mayor Eileen Higgins and commissioners should place an item on an upcoming meeting agenda to revisit the decision of signing the 287(g) agreement, and to allow residents to share express their opinion on the issue.