Could this be Florida’s future? Deportees from the United States are processed at El Salvador’s CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo) prison in March 2025. (Photo: Office of the President of El Salvador)
May 20, 2025 by David Silverberg
Florida’s “Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan” unveiled by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on May 12 envisions actions that “circumvent” federal regulations and restrictions, including standards and procedures ensuring humane treatment of detainees—and its first use may be against Venezuelans who lost their temporary protected status yesterday, May 19.
The 37-page Plan lays out creation of a state immigration enforcement and detention system separate from the federal one in “support of President Trump’s fight against the ‘deep state’ within federal agencies.”
The “Preliminary Potential Actions” section suggests the most radical actions the state could take. The majority of the Plan is concerned with authorities and areas of responsibility by various state and federal agencies.
Venezuelans who lost their legal status in the United States could be the first aliens to be subject to the Florida plan.
Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump had the authority to revoke the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Venezuelans in the United States. TPS allowed Venezuelans fleeing the dictatorial regime of President Nicolas Maduro to legally live and work in the United States for a specified period of time. They are now subject to detention and deportation.
An estimated 900,000 Venezuelans are living in the United States. Of these, an estimated 500,000 are covered by TPS, which was issued twice, in 2021 and 2023. Approximately 350,000, who were granted TPS in the second issuance, are subject to deportation and of these, an estimated 225,000 live in Florida.
If Florida decides to implement its Plan, this population could be the first target, subject to mass roundups and deportations by a state whose officers feel themselves unbound by standards of law, humane treatment or due process.
Key state proposals
Under existing law the federal government and its officers have sole authority for all matters of immigration, naturalization and border security. This is administered through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its enforcement and removal arm, the directorate of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Under the Florida Plan’s recommendations, local police trained under the 287(g) program would become “fully empowered immigration officers,” which the Plan states “would enable the State to bypass the operational bottleneck caused by the limited availability of ICE personnel.”
The 287(g) program trains local police to cooperate and support federal immigration personnel and efforts, but does not supplant them. Under this proposal, state officials, police and local law enforcement officers would be enabled to act with the same powers as federal immigration officers, detaining and ultimately possibly deporting detainees.
To oversee the anti-immigrant effort, the Plan would “Create a command structure led by the state that empowers coordinating officers to act without prior federal authorization.”
In other words, Florida would act independently of the federal government, establishing its own immigration command. It would act independently, taking on a role that was and has been confirmed as federal under the Constitution.
Why would it do this? As the Plan states: “Due to the limitations of the current Federal Executive Order, there has been a lack of leadership coming from the federal government that could be supplemented if the state of Florida were to assume operational control and enabling timely decision-making.”
The Plan proposes waiving “federal detention facility requirements” in order to “expand housing capacity for arrested individuals.”
“One of the stumbling blocks that we perceive exists in the detention section of the overall removal cycle. At present, the Federal government does not possess adequate bedspace capacity for its ambitious, and long overdue, enforcement strategy. While this can be mitigated by better, quicker through-put in physical repatriation—an important factor—it still poses a choke-point to be addressed.”
It continues: “At its current state, ICE is overwhelmed with the number of detainees that have been arrested prior to the state assisting with the process. With the state’s assistance, this number will grow by multitudes, which will likely become unsustainable if ICE were to remain operating at its current state. Many of the individuals arrested by state and local law enforcement will be forced to be released due to the lack of space in ICE detention facilities.”
Under current law and procedure the federal government has standards for housing inmates and detainees to ensure humane, sanitary, and proper treatment and housing. The Plan proposes waiving those requirements to allow holding of inmates under non-standard conditions, presumably substandard ones.
The federal standards are contained in the National Detention Standards (NDS). These are the standards used by ICE. It is against these standards that local jails are judged when it comes to housing federal detainees.
However, the Plan considers NDS too restrictive for what it has in mind.
“The standards are so limiting that many county jails cannot meet the standard even though they are otherwise accredited by the American Correctional Association,” complains the Plan. It finds it “anomalous” that local jails holding American citizens are considered unfit to hold detained aliens.
“This self-limiting proposition works against achieving the President's goals,” argues the Plan, which also complains that it drives up costs and makes “transportation and logistics more complex and cumbersome.”
To correct this, the Plan suggests that the Department of Homeland Security suspend the standards for the duration of the presidential state of emergency. (Trump declared an emergency on the US southern border on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day he took office.)
As an afterthought, the Plan adds that despite the suspension detainees will still be treated humanely and facilities will try to maintain humane standards.
All of this would be done to rapidly increase capacity. “Waiving select requirements would significantly increase the State’s capacity to detain individuals,” it states. If the standards are suspended, the state would be allowed to hold more people more rapidly under substandard conditions and “pave the way to set up soft-side detention as needed and desirable”—i.e., house them in tents.
If the state cannot build out this holding capacity on its own, it envisions turning to private companies to provide additional space. As the Plan puts it the state could “Utilize existing logistics vendors to establish additional detention space. If the State chooses to forgo the federal detention sites as well as the federal detention standards, logistics vendors are prepared to rapidly deploy detention facilities statewide.”
All of this is intended to hold massive numbers of people swept up in deportation raids, both state and federal.
The only obstacle to implementing the effort envisioned by the Plan is the fact that it may not be reimbursed for the expense by the federal government.
“The federal government has shown itself to be very hesitant to commit to any form of reimbursement to past or future immigration operations,” it complains. “There may come a time when, without federal assistance, a long-term immigration support mission may become fiscally untenable.”
Analysis and commentary: Bad ideas
Make no mistake: This is a plan for a mass roundup of people, using dubious justification, to be housed in questionable circumstances prior to deportation, which may be done by the state of Florida on its own authority. It would “circumvent” or supplant federal authorities, rules and regulations.
With these recommendations the State of Florida is proposing a completely separate state anti-migrant system and command structure without federal oversight, input or approval. Its operations would be conducted by local law enforcement officers who would have the powers of federal immigration officials but without the training, legitimate authority or legal background. Detainees would be housed in facilities and tents unregulated by federal standards of humane treatment including those of nourishment, healthcare and shelter, all of which it views as “bottlenecks” and “chokepoints.”
This would all be done at Florida taxpayers’ expense without any assurance of federal reimbursement or funding. Aside from its legal and humanitarian aspects, it would add an enormous expense to the state budget.
It would also be a gold rush for private for-profit detention companies, which could pursue lucrative, barely monitored contracts no doubt issued with little to no competitive bidding. The potential for graft, corruption and profiteering is enormous.
All this would be done in great haste, “circumventing” all proper procedures for due process, adjudication, regulated law enforcement or oversight.
Why the urgency? Partially because of a flawed, deeply questionable national “emergency,” partially in opposition to a delusional “deep state,” and purely out of what appears to be hatred, prejudice and rage against an alien population, whether legally resident or not. Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem have cited the presence of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, to justify their targeting of Venezuelans.
But Tren de Aragua is tiny group whose presence is being exaggerated to stereotype an entire population. In a press conference on Monday, May 19, Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, a non-profit advocacy organization, stated that Tren de Aragua members constituted “just 0.04 percent of our community.”
The Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump regime to revoke TPS for Venezuelans immediately establishes a vulnerable population to be preyed upon by the mechanism envisioned by the Plan.
This is especially relevant to Florida given its large Venezuelan population.
“As a lawyer and as the vice mayor of this city, I will continue to advocate and fight so that our community has access to the resources and information necessary to continue to fight and continue to prepare for what may come from all of this,” said Doral Vice Mayor Maureen Porras (R). Doral, Fla., is home to a Venezuelan population estimated at around 34,000, the largest in the United States.
She also warned, “Currently Venezuela is not in a position to receive its Venezuelans in a safe manner.” (Porras was first profiled by The Paradise Progressive when she ran for state representative in 2020.)
As of this writing, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-26-Fla.), whose district includes Doral, had not issued any statements regarding the loss of TPS on any of his social media accounts, although he has been extremely active in the past in denouncing the Maduro regime.
Right now the most radical elements of the Plan are recommendations only. They can still be stopped by the legislature when it passes its budget for the next fiscal year. People can protest against them, with a reasonable chance of defeating them.
They are evil ideas proposed at an evil time for evil reasons. They’re a form of darkness that should never see the light of day in the Sunshine State.
Click below to view and download the 37-page PDF Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan with redactions.
Liberty lives in light
© 2025 by David Silverberg