Florida and federal agents arrest 249 illegal immigrants in three-day highway sweep

More than 100 officers fanned out across Florida's highways before dawn, launching the latest in a series of coordinated enforcement operations that netted 249 illegal immigrants over three days. The sweep, designated "Operation 9," paired Florida Highway Patrol troopers with ICE agents, U.S. Border Patrol, Broward County deputies, and other state agencies in what officials described as a routine-traffic-stop dragnet stretching from South Florida to the Panhandle.

The number alone is significant. But what alarmed the officers involved was not just who they caught, it was who they still cannot account for.

Lt. Ramin Sulaiman, assistant commander of FHP's Immigration Enforcement Section, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive ride-along report that many of the people living illegally in Florida are what law enforcement calls "ghosts", individuals with zero prior encounters with any government agency, no records, no accountability trail.

"We have no records for them, no accountability of who they are. But that does not include all the ghosts, meaning the people that have no encounters [with law enforcement]. They're just here."

Sulaiman added bluntly: "It's unknown if they have criminal histories and/or nefarious intentions."

How Operation 9 worked

Officers gathered at an FHP station in Broward County before daybreak. From there, they deployed along South Florida highways, pulling over drivers for routine traffic infractions. When stops raised questions about a driver's or passenger's citizenship, troopers questioned individuals and, where documentation was absent, detained them for transfer to ICE.

Detainees were patted down and brought back to the station for processing. Officers offered water and snacks. The tone, at least as described by those on the ground, was professional, enforcement without theatrics. The point was the law, not a spectacle.

Trooper Tony Golden, who normally patrols six Panhandle counties inspecting commercial vehicles, put it plainly:

"We are enforcing the law. We don't pick and choose what we want to enforce."

That line deserves to hang in the air for a moment. In an era when Congress left Washington for Memorial Day without passing a $72 billion immigration enforcement bill, rank-and-file officers in Florida are doing the job anyway, one traffic stop at a time.

Nearly 10,500 apprehensions since March

Operation 9 is the ninth enforcement sweep in a series that began in October. Dave Kerner, executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, told Fox News Digital that Florida officers have apprehended nearly 10,500 illegal immigrants since March 2025.

That figure reflects a state-level enforcement apparatus operating at a pace that dwarfs what many jurisdictions even attempt. Florida has built a model that treats immigration enforcement not as a federal afterthought but as a shared obligation.

The multi-agency roster for Operation 9 underscores the breadth of that commitment: FHP, ICE, Border Patrol, the Broward Sheriff's Office, the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, and the Florida State Guard all contributed personnel. The approach mirrors the kind of large-scale federal enforcement operations that have become a hallmark of the current administration's law-and-order agenda.

The 'ghost' problem

Sulaiman's use of the word "ghosts" is not rhetorical flair. It describes a concrete and dangerous gap in the country's knowledge of who is living within its borders. He noted that more than one million immigrants entered the United States illegally during the Biden administration and told authorities they were headed to Florida, then were released.

One million. Headed to a single state. Released.

Many of those individuals never had a meaningful encounter with law enforcement again. They hold no valid identification. They appear in no database. When officers pull them over for a broken taillight or an expired tag, they are meeting these people for the first time, with no way to know whether the person behind the wheel has a clean record or a violent past.

The consequences of that information vacuum are not hypothetical. Florida has already seen cases where illegal immigrants with prior criminal histories committed serious offenses after being released into the interior. In one case, a Haitian immigrant was charged in a fatal hammer attack on a Florida mother, a crime that drew direct attention from the White House.

What happens after arrest

Nestor Yglesias, a public affairs officer for ICE, explained the processing pipeline to Fox News Digital. Once detainees are transferred from FHP to federal custody, ICE offers two options: an arranged flight back to their home country or detention pending an immigration hearing.

ICE determines whether the immigrant or the U.S. government pays for the flight. Some detainees leave with a self-deportation incentive of up to $2,600.

That last detail will land differently depending on your perspective. To enforcement officials, the incentive is a practical tool that clears cases faster and saves long-term detention costs. To taxpayers already frustrated by the price tag of illegal immigration, paying someone $2,600 to leave the country they entered illegally may feel like rewarding the behavior the operation is supposed to deter.

Either way, the money flows because the system is overwhelmed. When more than a million people were released into a single state's population with no meaningful tracking, every downstream solution, arrest, detention, flight, incentive, carries a cost that lawful residents never asked to bear.

A contrast with sanctuary jurisdictions

Florida's enforcement posture stands in sharp relief against states and cities that have adopted sanctuary policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. While some jurisdictions refuse to honor ICE detainers or bar local officers from asking about immigration status, Florida has moved in the opposite direction, embedding immigration enforcement into routine highway patrol work.

The results speak in numbers. Nine operations since October. Nearly 10,500 apprehensions since March. And a pipeline that moves detainees from a traffic stop to ICE custody to a flight home, or a hearing, without the jurisdictional foot-dragging that defines sanctuary cities.

The human cost of the alternative approach is not abstract. Across the country, cases continue to surface in which illegal immigrants with prior arrests or felony records committed violent crimes in communities that chose not to cooperate with federal enforcement. In Louisiana, an illegal immigrant pleaded guilty to incest after a 12-year-old girl gave birth to his child. In Texas, similar patterns have emerged. Florida's leadership has made a calculated decision that the political discomfort of aggressive enforcement is preferable to the real-world consequences of looking the other way.

Questions that remain

Fox News Digital's ride-along report leaves several questions unanswered. How many of the 249 detainees were true "ghosts" with no prior law enforcement record? What countries did they come from? Were any found to have criminal histories once fingerprints were run? How many chose the self-deportation incentive versus custody and a hearing?

Those details matter. They would tell us whether Operation 9 is catching people who simply overstayed a visa or people who have been deliberately evading detection. The distinction shapes both the policy debate and the public's understanding of the threat.

What is clear from the available facts is that Florida is not waiting for Congress to act. It is not waiting for a comprehensive bill. It is not waiting for a political consensus that may never arrive. It is putting officers on highways, partnering with federal agents, and enforcing the law as written, one stop, one detainee, one transfer at a time.

When elected officials elsewhere refuse to do the same, they are not choosing compassion. They are choosing ignorance, about who is in their communities, what those people have done, and what they might do next. Florida, at least, has decided it would rather know.