Why are immigrant communities being torn apart by ICE raids in Florida?
Immigrant communities in Florida are being torn apart by a surge in enforcement that targets working families, not violent criminals: federal immigration arrests hit 20,629 in Florida between January and October 2025, and 36% of June 2025 arrests involved people with no criminal history, a more than 450% increase over the prior year.[1] David Jolly's position is that this is disruption of thriving communities, not public safety, and that Florida should fight crime, not communities.[2]
The short version
Enforcement is hitting families, not criminals
36% of June 2025 ICE arrests in Florida involved people with no criminal history, a more than 450% increase over the prior year.[1]
Florida deputized itself to do more
Florida leads the nation in 287(g) agreements with 327, a 577% increase since January 2025, deputizing local police for immigration work.[3]
The claim behind it does not hold
Immigrants are far less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans, undercutting the idea that raids make communities safer.[4]
Voices on the Trail: David Jolly talks with a Cuban-American constituent in Miami about what ICE enforcement is doing to Florida neighborhoods.
What is actually happening in Florida
This isn't ordinary law enforcement. It's the dismantling of neighborhoods. Federal immigration arrests in Florida reached 20,629 between January 20 and October 15, 2025, roughly 10% of all immigration arrests in the country, at a pace of nearly 77 per day, up from about 20 per day the year before.[1] The people being taken are not who the enforcement was sold as. In June 2025, 36% of Florida arrests involved people with no criminal history at all, part of a more than 450% jump in the arrest of immigrants with no criminal charges or convictions.[1]
Florida did not just accept this. The state built the machinery for it. Florida now leads the nation in 287(g) agreements with 327, a 577% increase since January 2025, agreements that deputize local sheriffs and police to carry out immigration duties.[3] That structure has a cost. When local officers become immigration agents, immigrant families stop calling 911, stop reporting domestic violence, and stop coming forward as witnesses. Everyone becomes less safe. Different neighborhoods. Different backgrounds. Same fear.
The case that these raids never made sense
The justification for all of this is that immigrant communities are dangerous. The evidence says otherwise. Cato Institute analysis of Census data found that 11% of native-born Americans in the 1990 birth cohort had been incarcerated by age 33, compared with only 3% of immigrants, meaning native-born Americans are 267% more likely to have been incarcerated.[4] Undocumented immigrants are half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans. Immigrants were also 44% less likely to be victims of violent crime from 2017 to 2023.[4] Standing in a Miami park, David Jolly put it plainly: there is a lower propensity of violent and property crimes in immigrant communities than in native-born communities, but this governor and the president would have you believe immigration is the greatest threat we face, and it's wrong.[5]
There is an economic hole underneath the human one. Immigrants are 44.7% of Florida's agriculture workforce and 37.8% of its construction workforce.[6] They contribute $12.0 billion in Florida state and local taxes each year, with undocumented immigrants alone paying $1.8 billion, the 4th highest of any state.[7] Tearing these families out of communities does not make Florida safer. It makes Florida poorer, and it makes hurricane recovery, home building, and farm work slower. Lead with your heart because it's the right thing. Lead with your head because the math agrees.
David Jolly's approach: fight crime, not communities
This is a spoke of the campaign's broader immigration plan. The full plan lives on the immigration issue page. On this specific question, the position is clear. Jolly's framing from the Miami interview: people were going to work, putting food on the table, sending their kids to school, the community was thriving and safe, and now the president sends in ICE to disrupt communities to try to solve a problem that never existed.[5] His contrast with the current governor is direct: our current governor is not fighting crime, he's fighting a community.[8]
The approach is not to abandon the rule of law. It's to restore it. Break the law in Florida and you'll be held accountable, whether you're native born, an immigrant, or a Tallahassee politician.[2] But Florida can also correct disparities in criminal justice and return to local control of community policing. Jolly's stated hope as governor is that Florida returns to being a state where the immigrant is recognized and celebrated for their economic and cultural contributions.[9] He grounds it in Miami's own memory, the Mariel boatlift and the Orange Bowl, and in Mayor Ferré's words that if we fail to embrace the refugee, we might as well throw the Statue of Liberty into the East River.[5] This isn't a fight about party. It's a fight about whether Florida remembers who it is.
Frequently asked questions
Q. What did Jolly say about ICE in Florida?
From the Mayor Ferré Park interview: "People were going to work putting food on the table for their children, sending their kids to school. The community was thriving and safe, and now the president sends in ICE to disrupt communities to try to solve a problem that never existed." The Florida data backs the claim, federal immigration arrests in Florida hit 20,629 between January 20 and October 15, 2025, with 36% of June arrests involving people with no criminal history (a 450%+ increase). Florida leads the nation in 287(g) agreements with 327 (a 577% increase since January 2025).[1]
Q. Why does Jolly oppose ICE doing its job?
Jolly's position is more specific than "oppose ICE." From the Mayor Ferré Park interview, his framing is that ICE is being used as a political tool to disrupt communities that were already thriving, not to address actual public safety threats. The data: 36% of June 2025 ICE arrests in Florida involved people with no criminal history. ICE arrests of non-criminal immigrants in Florida rose more than 450% in mid-2025 vs the prior year. Jolly's position pushes for ICE to focus on actual criminal threats, restore community trust with local law enforcement (the structural reason the FL Sheriffs Association has flagged 287(g) concerns), and treat working families with due process, not abandon immigration enforcement entirely.[1]
Q. Shouldn't we just enforce the law and deport people here illegally?
A few empirical points complicate this framing. First, mass deportation has been estimated at $315 billion as a one-time cost plus $1.1 to $1.7 trillion in GDP impact per American Immigration Council. Second, ICE arrests of immigrants without criminal history rose 450%+ in Florida in June 2025, the people being deported are largely working families, not violent criminals. Third, Florida's economy structurally depends on immigrant labor (44.7% of agriculture, 37.8% of construction). Fourth, federal immigration enforcement is a federal question; states cannot meaningfully execute mass deportation without massive federal capacity expansion. Jolly's position is that compassionate reform plus border security plus a pathway is more achievable than mass enforcement.[10]
Q. Aren't undocumented immigrants criminals by definition?
Civil violations vs. criminal violations are legally distinct. Most undocumented immigrants are present in violation of civil immigration law (overstaying a visa, entering without inspection), these are civil offenses, not crimes. About 40% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. entered legally and overstayed their visas, they never crossed a border illegally. Criminal violations of immigration law (re-entry after deportation, smuggling) are separate categories. The Cato Institute data on incarceration shows that even comparing populations on the same definitional terms, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are far less likely to be involved in criminal activity than native-born Americans.[4]
Q. Do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans?
No, substantially less. Cato Institute analyses of American Community Survey data 2006-2023 show that 11% of native-born Americans in the 1990 birth cohort had been incarcerated by age 33, compared with only 3% of immigrants. Native-born Americans are 267% more likely to have been incarcerated. Illegal immigrants are half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born; legal immigrants are 74% less likely. Immigrants were also 44% less likely to be victimized by violent crime from 2017-2023. The finding is consistent across multiple independent studies, both legal and unauthorized populations, and many decades.[4]
Q. What if I work in agriculture or construction in Florida?
You're in one of the sectors most directly affected by Florida's immigration enforcement environment. Immigrants make up 44.7% of Florida's agriculture workforce and 37.8% of the construction workforce per American Immigration Council analysis. SB 1718's E-Verify mandate has produced documented worker shortages, delayed projects, and increased labor costs in these sectors since July 2023. Reports from these sectors consistently flag the workforce impact. Jolly's position takes the structural view: Florida's tourism, construction, and agriculture economy depends on immigrant labor and you cannot fix it through state-level enforcement alone.[6]
Q. Don't immigrants overwhelm public services?
Immigrants in Florida pay $12.0 billion in state and local taxes annually. Undocumented immigrants alone pay $1.8 billion in Florida state and local taxes, the 4th highest of any state. Federal Social Security and Medicare contributions from undocumented workers (via ITIN filings) flow into trust funds that those workers cannot access. Most fiscal-impact studies find immigrants are net contributors to state budgets over their lifetimes, particularly when second-generation U.S.-born children are included. The "overwhelming public services" framing reflects a snapshot view that ignores tax contributions and long-term economic activity.[7]
Q. What is Jolly's position on SB 1718?
SB 1718 is the specific Florida law Jolly's position pushes against. The law's E-Verify mandate and felony-transportation provisions hit agriculture, construction, and hospitality, sectors where immigrants are 30 to 50%+ of the workforce. Jolly's "fights crime, not communities" framing treats SB 1718 as targeting working families who pose no public-safety threat, rather than addressing the underlying federal immigration system. The structural argument: state-level enforcement laws cannot substitute for federal reform, and in practice they punish the immigrants and businesses Florida's economy depends on.[11]
Q. What does Jolly mean by "values before policies"?
From the Mayor Ferré Park interview: "I talk about values a lot before policies. The policies are easy if we can decide on the values." The structural argument: most immigration policy debates collapse into yelling about specific provisions because the underlying values are contested. If a state agrees on the values, that immigrants are welcomed, that families should not be separated without due process, that economic and cultural contributions are real, the policy disagreements become smaller and more solvable. Jolly invokes Miami history specifically, the Mariel boatlift, the Orange Bowl processing, Mayor Ferré's refugee advocacy, as evidence that Florida already knows how to do this when its values are aligned.[5]
Q. What did Mayor Ferré say about refugees that Jolly references?
In the Mayor Ferré Park interview, Jolly recalls: "We're standing in Mayor Ferré Park, and it was the mayor who said, if we fail to embrace the refugee, we might as well throw the Statue of Liberty into the East River." Maurice Antonio Ferré (1935-2019) was Miami's first Hispanic mayor (six terms, 1973-1985), the first Puerto Rican-born mayor of a major U.S. mainland city, and a member of President Ford's Presidential Advisory Committee on Refugees (1975). He oversaw Miami through the Mariel boatlift and is sometimes called "the father of modern-day Miami." Maurice Ferré Park in downtown Miami is named in his honor.[12]
Q. Don't immigrants take jobs from Floridians?
The empirical evidence does not support this. Florida's tourism, agriculture, construction, and hospitality sectors depend on immigrant labor that native-born workers consistently do not apply for at offered wages. American Immigration Council data shows immigrants are 26.6% of the Florida workforce, immigrant entrepreneurs grew by 87,500 since 2016 (largest U.S. state increase), and immigrant-owned businesses employ U.S.-born Floridians at scale. The economic question is not "do immigrants take jobs" but "what happens to the Florida economy if the immigrant workforce leaves," and the post-SB 1718 worker-shortage reports give an early answer.[7]
Q. Does Jolly support border security?
Yes. Jolly's framing: "We can solve border security. We can solve compassionate immigration reform. We can solve a pathway to legal status and to work." The structural argument is that border security and humane treatment of immigrants are not opposites, they're both achievable if you start from shared values. His "fights crime, not communities" framing treats border security as a federal issue while pointing out that Florida's state-level immigration enforcement (SB 1718, 287(g) expansion) targets people who are already settled, working, and contributing, not people crossing the border.[9]
Sources
- WUSF (Deportation Data Project), Who did ICE arrest in Florida last year, https://www.wusf.org/politics-issues/2026-03-10/who-did-ice-arrest-in-florida-last-year · 2026-03-10
- David Jolly, Fighting Crime, not Communities, https://davidjolly.com/fighting-crime-not-communities · 2024-01-01
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Weeklong ICE operation with state and local partners, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09/30/weeklong-ice-operation-state-and-local-partners-leads-arrest-more-400-illegal · 2025-09-30
- Cato Institute, Immigrants have lower lifetime incarceration rates than native-born Americans, https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-have-lower-lifetime-incarceration-rates-native-born-americans · 2025-04-01
- David Jolly, Immigration interview at Mayor Ferré Park, Miami, https://davidjolly.com/immigration-interview-miami-ferre-park · 2025-08-01
- American Immigration Council, Florida workforce map, https://map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/florida/ · 2024-01-01
- American Immigration Council, Immigrants in Florida, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/press-release/immigrants-are-key-economic-growth-florida/ · 2024-01-01
- David Jolly, Voices on the Trail (Immigration), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0OAN0qc-XE · 2026-05-21
- David Jolly, Treating Everyone with Kindness, Dignity and Respect, https://davidjolly.com/treating-everyone-with-kindness-dignity-and-respect · 2024-01-01
- American Immigration Council, Mass Deportation report, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation/ · 2024-10-01
- Florida Senate, SB 1718 (2023), https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1718 · 2023-05-10
- Encyclopedia summary, Maurice Ferré, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Ferr%C3%A9 · 2019-09-19
This isn't public safety. It's the disruption of thriving communities.
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