Immigration Efforts Continue In Florida Despite Judge's Ruling

By Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix

August 25, 2025

Undeterred by the ordered shutdown of the Everglades immigrant detention facility, Gov. Ron DeSantis and state law enforcement officials Friday touted a recent immigration crackdown in the Panhandle.

Hours after U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ordered “Alligator Alcatraz” shutdown within 60 days, DeSantis appeared in Panama City, flanked by federally deputized Florida Highway Patrol troopers who participated in a concentrated crackdown on unauthorized immigration.

According to the governor, the operation featured FHP and federal agencies “targeting illegal aliens with criminal records, fugitives, and repeat immigration violators.”

Across three days, 45 troopers and 20 federal personnel in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Walton, Okaloosa, Holmes, Bay, Washington, and Jackson counties apprehended nearly 200 people, DeSantis said.

The operation, still in process during the news conference, included 37 who’ve previously received final removal orders but had not appeared in court and eight who had been deported before and re-entered the United States, DeSantis said.

“This operation sends a clear and uncompromising message: We will not tolerate lawlessness in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

People the officers encountered “have fled, resisted arrests, and even physically assaulted officers,” DeSantis said.

Dave Kerner, director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said local law enforcement’s willingness to house federal inmates has made troopers’ jobs easier.

“Before we would have to drive hours and hours to a federal facility. That effort alone has allowed us to apprehend hundreds upon hundreds of more illegal immigrants in just a couple days,” Kerner said.

DeSantis called the task the Panhandle Immigration Enforcement Operation.

“Moving forward, we don’t have a fancy title or operation title. We had Operation Tidal Wave. We don’t have those anymore because the reality, governor, is, at your direction, this is the way that it’s going to be,” Kerner said.

Also at the news conference was Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, State Board of Immigration Enforcement Director Larry Keefe, and Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Col. Gary Howze.

In addition to shutting down the immigration detention facility within 60 days, Williams ordered no new detainees sent there.

Williams mentioned extensive harm to the Everglades and that the state did not conduct an environmental assessment or issue an environmental impact statement, citing the National Environmental Policy Act.

“We got news last night that we had a judge try to upset the apple cart with respect to our deportation and detainee processing center down in South Florida at Alligator Alcatraz,” DeSantis said.

The state has already filed an appeal to Williams’ ruling.

“This was not something that was unexpected. This is a judge was not going to give us a fair shake. This was preordained. Very much an activist judge that is trying to do policy from the bench. This is not going to deter us,” DeSantis said.

Williams was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“We knew the minute this judge got the case, we knew exactly what she was going to do,” DeSantis said.

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