The Florida Highway Patrol could be seen this week teaming up with federal immigration enforcers to stop and question people in the landscaping business, pulling over their trucks along busy Broward County highways.
FHP is part of a state-federal partnership that the state is mandating local jails and law enforcement to participate in. And NBC6 Investigates found evidence in newly released data that a much larger share of those recently snagged in the so-called 287(g) efforts are people with no criminal history.
Social media was flooded this week with images of men working in the landscaping business being handcuffed after FHP troopers pulled over their trucks, and then federal agents moved in to take some away.
Among them was the husband of a woman who spoke exclusively to Telemundo.
“It’s an impact. We still haven’t processed it — neither my children nor me,” said, asking we conceal her and her husband’s identities.
“My children don’t want to go to school. They’re afraid. They don’t want me to be away from them because they’re scared of being left alone,” she said. “And they ask me, ‘Mom, if you leave, what’s going to happen to us?’”
The father of those children – who the wife said had a valid work permit – was just the latest in what has been thousands of immigration arrests made with the assistance of state and local law enforcement, as required under those 287(g) agreements.
FHP alone had, by Aug. 23, apprehended more than 3,400 of what it calls “illegal aliens” in Florida, according to a court filing by its deputy director, Joseph Harrison.
Data on ICE apprehensions in Florida released last week and analyzed by NBC6 Investigates shows a much larger share of those detained under 287(g) programs had no criminal convictions as the state ramped up its immigration enforcement efforts with the feds.
And this week’s operations have instilled fear among other landscaping businessmen, like “Jalen,” who, with his wife and four employees, do landscaping and tree services.
When he saw the video of a fellow landscaper being arrested Tuesday, he said he thought “he was arrested like a real criminal…. They were arresting only people who go to work.”
Jalen said he and his workers have valid work permits but remain afraid because he says ICE is not honoring them. “They have work permit, but they say, ‘No, that’s fake. Come here.’”
And when they do, some go into detention, including at Florida’s Everglades detention camp, what the state calls Alligator Alcatraz.
The NBC6 analysis of the ICE data – obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the University of California, Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project – found more than 800 men detained there were associated with the 287(g) program.
Statewide, the chart below shows the number of such arrests, in blue, remained relatively low, averaging 98 a month beginning in September 2023, with 4% of them having no criminal histories.
That changed in April 2025, as the state geared up its immigration crackdown with the feds.
The data show 287(g) detentions increasing to an average of 400 a month, peaking at 1,009 in September, when the share of them with no criminal conviction or charges pending topped out at 37%. The data ends on Oct. 15.
Seeing what the state and feds are doing, Jalen said, has spread fears to his three children and wife, with whom he used to work.
“But we’re not going (to work) together anymore because if they take both, what about my children?” he asked.
The wife of the man detained Tuesday said he had a valid work permit as well.
“I beg God and the authorities for his release,” she pleaded. “My family is destroyed, my children are destroyed, and we are good people. We are not criminals. We didn’t do anything wrong — just came to this country to work.”
Jalen said his business is effectively shut down this week, but his clients know what is happening and understand. If people who keep lawns mown and hedges trimmed continue to be taken into custody, he predicted prices will have to rise for consumers.
NBC6 reached out to ICE about their operations this week and the increasing share of people with no criminal histories being detained but received no response to those questions.
FHP just told NBC6 they were “conducting routine traffic enforcement,” without providing specifics. A spokesperson also shared general information about the ways the agency partners with ICE.
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