FIU police chief pledges no racial profiling under pending deal to help ICE

Miami Herald

22-05-2025

Florida International University Chief of Police Alexander Casas repeatedly assured students and faculty on Wednesday that his department would not engage in racial profiling under its pending agreement to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce the Trump administration's immigration agenda. The plan has drawn mounting backlash from the predominantly Hispanic school's students and faculty.
At an emotional, two-hour forum attended by nearly 200 students, faculty and community members, Casas faced pointed questions about ICE's controversial 287(g) program which the university signed onto in April. If enacted, trained FIU officers would be given the authority to stop, question, and in some cases detain individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.
Seated on a panel with immigrant rights advocates and legal experts — FIU law professor Juan Carlos Gómez; Alana Greer of the Miami-based Community Justice Project; Renata Bozzetto, deputy director for the Florida Immigrant Coalition; and FIU students Dariel Gomez and Kassandra Toussaint — Casas promised that FIU officers wouldn't question individuals on campus without a warrant or probable cause.
But when asked by moderator Clara-Sophia Daly, Miami Herald's education reporter, to define what could constitute probable cause to determine if a person was undocumented, Casas said, 'I couldn't tell you.' Probable cause would be determined on a case by case basis, he said.
Other key details of the yet-to-be-finalized agreement remain uncertain — including how much the program will cost the department, what mechanisms exist for reimbursement and when officers would undergo the required 40-hour training.
'It's a mess,' Casas told the Miami Herald prior to the forum. 'What do we do? What do we not do?'
As signs reading 'NO ICE ON CAMPUS' and 'PAWS OFF OUR STUDENTS' waved in the crowd, Casas attempted to assuage other concerns about the plan, emphasizing it wouldn't extend the university police department's presence into K-12 schools or hinder its ability to address other issues on campus.
One student asked what would happen if someone on campus alerted FIU's police department to the immigration status of another student.
'Will there be a culture of chivatos at this university,' the attendee asked, using the Spanish word for snitch.
Casas said that any such accusations would still require further investigation, but that such information could potentially initiate probable cause. This created tension during the meeting which Casas tried to calm.
'No,' he said. 'We don't have a culture of snitches.'
The exchange illustrated the widening gap between what FIU's police sees as preventative policing and what students fear is the beginning of an atmosphere of surveillance and suspicion. Despite Casas' repeated insistence that officers would not ask about immigration status without legal cause or engage in racial profiling, some professors said their students had already stopped attending class due to fear of detention.
Panelist Greer pushed back on the idea that racial profiling could be entirely avoided under the proposed agreement. She pointed to the troubled track record of similar programs nationwide, where efforts to deputize local police in immigration enforcement have repeatedly led to racial profiling, breakdowns in communication with federal agencies and costly lawsuits against local departments.
'I commend you for your commitment to not racially profile,' Greer said, addressing Casas. 'But when you have an agreement that has such historical baggage of opening opportunities for racial profiling to happen, for distrust and clearly putting people into harm's way, the community does not have a way back.'
FIU's student body is largely Hispanic — about 68 percent, according to the U.S. News and World Report — and many are permanent residents or are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides temporary protection from deportation for some immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
Casas told forum attendees that students won't be required to carry immigration documents, but added: 'If, by all means, you think that will help you dispel any suspicion that should arise, I'm not gonna tell you not to do that.'
When asked on Wednesday whether he was under pressure from the governor to enter the agreement, Casas said 'no.'
The forum unfolded against a backdrop of rising campus anxiety over immigration enforcement. In recent weeks, 18 FIU international students had their F-1 visas revoked, prompting protests and an emergency faculty meeting last month. At the time, interim President Jeanette Nuñez — who served as DeSantis' lieutenant governor until February — defended the revocations, saying that it was the university's responsibility to remove students who had engaged in criminal activity. It remains unclear whether those students, who have since had their visas reinstated and have been reenrolled, had violated any laws.
Nuñez, who is slated to take over the presidency permanently, also backed FIU's agreement with ICE, stating at last month's emergency meeting that Casas told her he signed on to the program because he felt that campus police were better positioned than outside agencies to handle cases involving suspected undocumented students due to their community ties.
One professor challenged that reasoning, which Casas repeated during the panel on Wednesday, telling the police chief that for students with fragile immigration statuses, being detained by university police would feel like a betrayal.
'I understand that,' Casas responded. 'I think that's my burden to bear.'