Families scramble to find loved ones – and answers – after massive ICE raid in Florida

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Families scramble to find loved ones – and answers – after massive ICE raid in Florida Family members, friends of detained immigrants in Florida say they have had trouble locating them in ICE facilities, county jails.
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Tallahassee, Florida, ICE crackdown: Inside bus filled with detainees
A detainee, Juan Carlos Hernandez, took a video of inside the bus, where he and his coworkers were handcuffed. He sent it to a reporter outside.
What we know: Over 100 construction workers were detained in a Tallahassee, Florida immigration raid.
Detainees were sent to various locations, including Florida's Baker County, Miami, and Texas, with some already deported to Mexico.
The whereabouts of some detainees remain unknown, causing distress for families and friends.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida ‒ Family members and friends of the more than 100 construction workers detained in what was deemed Florida's largest immigration raid this year say they are having trouble locating their loved ones.
Some of the laborers were sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Baker County, while some went to Miami's Krome Detention Center. Others were quickly flown to El Paso, Texas, and were still there awaiting removal as of June 3.
And some are already in Mexico, just five days after being detained and bused away from their job site in Tallahassee, the state's capital.
But others are still silent, and their friends and family are worried and waiting for a call to know where they are – and if they're safe.
Questions about where the detainees were headed and in which detention facilities they would be held have been pending with federal authorities since May 29. Questions about how often detainees are transferred are also pending.
Many of the county detention facilities across the state are already at capacity, according to state records.
"There's no apparent rhyme or reason to where people are sent," Florida-based immigration attorney Elizabeth Ricci said. Her firm, Rambana & Ricci, is representing clients who were detained in the raid at a construction site of a seven-story mixed-use development called Perla at the Enclave.
Texas seen as better to send detainees to
Immigration lawyers say detainees are often sent to Texas because judges there are tougher and it's closer to the U.S.-Mexico border, making it easier for removal and harder for lawyers and families to track them down to block that removal.
Some of the laborers were on their way to Texas as soon as the day after the raid, but not everyone could find friends and family, as ICE's Online Detainee Locator System has been unreliable in recent months, according to Ricci.
"It's very possible that we are on the (telephone) waiting to have a bond hearing that was scheduled, and unbeknownst to us, the person has been sent to another facility," Ricci said. If a detainee is sent to another court jurisdiction, the attorney has to file the client's paperwork in that district all over again.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders have criticized federal judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump's mass deportation agenda. They describe it as 'lawfare,' referring to the use (or misuse) of legal systems to attack, discredit, or obstruct an opponent.
They've publicly denounced one Florida judge, who ruled one of the state's latest immigration laws unconstitutional, saying she ruled beyond her jurisdiction.
Florida's reputation as 'toughest' on illegal immigration
In the name of being the "toughest" state on immigration, Florida officials also asked the federal government for more leeway to establish its own brick-and-mortar facilities to detain and house more immigrants.
Waiving federal standards for detention would allow the state to house more people and for longer, they say, as ICE currently does not have the capability to keep up with the president's and Florida governor's mass deportation mandates.
According to the state's immigration enforcement operations plan: 'There is … a major chokepoint in terms of detention. At its current state, ICE is overwhelmed with the number of detainees that have been arrested prior to the state assisting with the process.'
Advocates say this has led to some detained immigrants being moved, some up to five times, from ICE detention to county jails, out of state and back in.
There were 1,984 open jail beds in county detention facilities at the end of March, according to a report on vacant beds from Larry Keefe, the executive director of the State Board of Immigration Enforcement, to Florida Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula.
But 27 of the facilities, some of which are the only detention facilities in their counties, have no vacant beds, according to the March 26, report.
Mariana Blanco, director of operations of the Guatemalan-Mayan Center in Palm Beach County, has been tracking detentions of people in her community since March. .
Blanco said many detainees are held at Krome, recognized as America's oldest immigration detention facility, for weeks and even months. But there is a growing number of detainees who are constantly being transferred from one detention facility to another, making it difficult to alert family or their lawyers, if they have one.
'We have folks who have been detained for months, and we have folks who, within 24 hours, them and their U.S. born-kids were already sent back to their country,' Blanco said.
'There is no way to keep track of the detentions and deportation work."
For example, according to Blanco's data, one client was held at Krome, then moved to a Broward County detention facility, and is now at the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center. Another was held in Stuart, Florida, moved to Louisiana, then brought back to Krome to later be deported.
One client has been transferred nine times, Blanco said.
The constant transfers have allowed the government to place some immigrants on deportation flights before they could speak with family members or attorneys, she added.
Most of her daily calls come from desperate families seeking help to locate their detained family members.
Before 8 a.m. many day, Ricci also gets frantic calls from clients who say a family member's hearing has been rescheduled for that day and they just found out, which leaves little time to prepare.
"That's all part of this intentional system to make it more difficult for people to have a defense," Ricci said.
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at [e-mail]. Valentina Palm covers immigration in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post, a member of the the USA TODAY Network – Florida. Email her at [e-mail].