Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday supported state law enforcement officials who are encouraging Immigration and Customs Enforcement to seek new employees from among people who aren’t already assisting in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort.
ICE recently sent recruitment letters to “a lot” of Floridians working in state agencies and “dangling like a lot of bonus money and all this other stuff,” DeSantis said during a press conference at Florida Highway Patrol Headquarters in Orlando, Florida.
“I know some sheriffs have had concerns that that’s happening,” the governor said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, we’ve been doing all this stuff to help you guys, and now you’re trying to poach our people who are already in the fight. Why not recruit additional people to be supplementing that instead of just kind of displacing.'”
Local agencies in Florida are among those who have partnered with the federal government via the 287(g) program, which allows ICE to authorize state and local law enforcement officers to perform specific immigration enforcement duties under ICE’s supervision.
“We’ve gone above and beyond as a state,” DeSantis said. “All these sheriffs’ departments and many police departments have done these agreements [with ICE]. They have folks that have now been certified or are in the process still of doing that. That’s been a huge help to ICE.”
“Sheriffs losing deputies who are in this [immigration] fight to just wear a different jersey, basically, but still be in the fight, that doesn’t necessarily add to what we’re doing. It’s just moving someone over,” added DeSantis.
ICE is offering what it calls a “robust package” of federal law enforcement incentives, including a “maximum $50,000 signing bonus,” Florida Politics reported.
Saying he had not seen the letter himself, DeSantis added he “heard a lot of static coming out of our sheriffs’ departments about that.”
“I told them, I said, ‘Listen, you know, you guys got to defend your agencies and your people. I mean, you say, fight for what you think is right. I mean, this isn’t my policy. It’s coming down from ICE. So, by all means, speak up,'” he said.
Early last month, Trump visited the new Florida Everglades immigration detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by state officials, that has been heralded by Republicans as a potential model for other states to aggressively ramp up detention and deportation efforts.
ICE on Thursday announced it had issued more than 1,000 tentative job offers since July 4. The agency said it extended job offers to several former ICE officers and agents who retired under the Biden administration.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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