Operation "Tidal Wave" Is a "Dress Rehearsal" for Mass Deportations

May 5, 2025

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the results of “Operation Tidal Wave,” a multi-agency law enforcement raid focused on arresting immigrants throughout Florida.

“These are people who should have never been in this country,” DeSantis said in a press conference, alleging that some had been previously deported or had pending deportations orders.

According to DeSantis and ICE’s official press release, the multi-agency operation arrested over 1,100 people. (“A significant impact,” DeSantis said.)

It’s also plainly designed to be an example of how the Trump administration believed 287(g) agreements should work. (If you need a recap on 287(g) agreements, see this post.) As ICE wrote in their social media postings, “Operation Tidal Wave shows how effective 287(g) partnerships are. We’re stronger when we work together to arrest criminal aliens.” DeSantis described 287(g) as “effectively dormant” before Trump took office for the second time.

Larry Keefe, who leads Florida’s Board of Immigration Enforcement, emphasized in the same press conference that 287(g) agreements were vital for “mass deportations,” calling the operation a “blueprint,” a “warm up” and a “test run” for a “sustained, persistent effort.” (“Logistics that would make Amazon deliveries blush,” Keefe said.)

While all officials insisted that there was “no racial profiling,” Jeffrey Dinise, chief patrol agent in South Florida for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said that Florida highway patrol was watching the reactions of drivers to decide whether or not to pull them over and run the license plate: “This is how they operate…They’re looking for reactions, reactions from the drivers. First of all, the driver looks over and then looks away and won’t look at them again. Then they vary their speed and move away from that marked unit.

Who exactly was arrested? Well, the government claims that 63% were people with some kind of history of arrests or convictions (but did not clarify exactly what.) But, at least one news report suggests that perhaps American citizens were also caught in the dragnet. And, according to CBS, some people with no criminal record and who had pending asylum cases were arrested.

As I wrote previously, this year, Florida passed legislation (SB 4-C) that would make it illegal, basically, to be an immigrant in the state of Florida. A federal judge issued an injunction, which law enforcement throughout the state were given a memo encouraging them to intentionally ignore.

In court at the end of April, the Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier made the implausible argument that the judge’s injunction did not cover Florida law enforcement; only the AG’s office. After being yelled at by the judge, the AG appeared to comply through a memo to law enforcement, only to retract his guidance and inform them that they could simply continue arresting under SB 4-C in direct violation of the judge’s order. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams plans to hold a hearing at the end of May to possibly hold Uthmeier in contempt of court.

Operation Tidal Wave appears to represent the apotheosis of immigration enforcement, a united front of police and military might against people deemed unworthy to be present in the United States. DeSantis required every sheriff’s office to join the 287(g) program as well as police departments; there are also Florida state agencies, even regulatory ones – like states agencies that regulate the state lottery – and Florida businesses.

Where are these people now? We do not know. There is no list of those arrested; nor is it clear what kind of due process they will receive. (DeSantis has floated an idea to make National Guardsmen immigration judges in order to expedite the docket. He also described immigration hearings as “OJ Simpson trials,” disparagingly, and added, “[deportations] are not punishment.”) Once again, people have disappeared into the gaping maw of the insatiable crimmigration machine that both political parties have empowered and that Trump has weaponized against everyone.