‘Corrupt' Tallahassee ICE raid hits close to home, drums up community protest
Luis Arreguin of Tallahassee sits among shouting protesters in front of the Florida Capitol on May 30, 2025. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)
Vacated construction sites, rapid protest organizing, and confusion — the immigration raid in Tallahassee this week hit close to home for many Panhandle residents.
Some protesters in front of the Florida Capitol Friday evening had politics on their mind, while others told the Phoenix they were there because others, who had been detained or are scared to leave their homes, couldn't be.
ICE raids FSU College Town construction site, buses away workers
The protest drew hundreds of people, a day after Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state police raided a construction site in Tallahassee and detained many of the workers.
'There's a lot of people who can't be out here right now. A lot of them are scared to leave their house, so I gotta do it for them,' Luis Arreguin said.
Arreguin moved to Tallahassee 10 years ago from Mayo, Florida, where people had more respect for laborers, he said.
'Blindsided, corrupt,' Arreguin said of the raid. 'They're not doing it for right reasons but, whatever, it is what it is. All we can do is do this right here, what we're doing. There's a god up there, he sees it all, he knows what happened yesterday.'
Wearing a white button-up shirt, Arreguin sat quietly on a bollard in front of the Capitol, holding a sign reading, 'IMMIGRANTS ARE WELCOME HERE,' while others chanted, encouraged honking from drivers-by, and cheered for speakers.
'We're not bad people,' Arreguin said, referring to 'Mexicans, Hispanics, immigrants.'
'This nation was built on immigrants. So, I don't know what the hell happened in the last 10-20 years that we forgot,' Arreguin said. 'Some of the greatest inventions that's come out of this country have come from immigrants. It's just the passing of the torch, man, you just gotta wait it out.'
According to ICE, '100+ illegal aliens' were arrested during the 'targeted enforcement operation Thursday.' The agency said people arrested were from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Honduras 'to name a few.'
The operation was directed by ICE Homeland Security Investigations Tallahassee and assisted by Florida Highway Patrol, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service, and Drug Enforcement Administration.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who called a special legislative session earlier this year to create laws cracking down on illegal immigration, characterized the raid as a 'Major bust in Tallahassee!'
Ivette Martinez, a daughter of immigrants, traveled from Bainbridge, Georgia, to join the protest.
'It's inhumane,' said Martinez, whose husband works five minutes away from the construction site. 'It could've been my husband.'
'My question is, we present a birth certificate, Social Security, a Real ID that we have, and they still be saying it's fake,' Martinez said, concerned about cases such as one the Phoenix reported on in which a U.S. citizen was detained under the new immigration laws after showing his ID.
'So what, me as a USA citizen, do I have to prove in order to prove that I am a USA citizen? If they don't take my word, they don't take my real ID, Social Security, or birth certificate, what else? Am I just supposed to let them detain me or fight back?'
After entering the construction site near the Florida State University campus, federal and state officials asked workers for identification and separated them into two categories, witnesses told the Phoenix. According to ICE, one worker during Thursday's raid was charged with four counts of assault on law enforcement officers and another attempted to pull a weapon on officers.
Some were free to go; others were handcuffed and led onto white buses with metal-plated windows to be transported away from the worksite, escorted by the Highway Patrol. Officials, many masked, on the scene declined to provide information about the operation.
Construction workers who'd been allowed to leave told the Phoenix that law enforcement officers had surrounded the site on West Gaines Street in FSU-adjacent College Town before the raid began at about 9 a.m.
Kat Spiegel drove an hour and half from Jennings, Florida, with politics on her mind.
'I'm here because Trump is dismantling our entire democracy. He's trampling over the Constitution,' Spiegel told the Phoenix. 'ICE is out of control and they're running around, they're not identifying themselves, we have no idea who they are, they're masked, it's disgusting, he needs to go.'
DeSantis posted to social media Friday that federal officials 'are pursuing the subcontractor responsible for hiring the illegal alien workers…'
'These types of enforcement actions aim to eliminate illegal employment, holding employers accountable and protecting employment opportunities for America's lawful workforce,' said ICE Homeland Security Investigations Tallahassee Assistant Special Agent in Charge Nicholas Ingegno in a news release.
'HSI Tallahassee, working alongside our state, local, and federal partners, will continue protecting public safety by enforcing the immigration laws of our nation.'
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Tony Alas, who works in construction, was at the protest with his family, holding a sign covered in stars and hearts that read, 'Immigrants Make America Great.'
'They say we come here to steal. We're not stealing anything. We're just doing the job that nobody else wants to do,' Alas told the Phoenix.
'They say, 'Come here, do it the right way.' The immigration system is broken and they need to fix it,' Alas said.
'Because sometimes it's people with no papers and it's not about money, it's about your kin. Some of my friends, they had to go back. When you have a wife and kids, you don't want to go back to your country and wait like, like, what? Three or four years, 10 years to get your papers straight? So you take the risk to stay with no papers.'
Tony Alas' 19-year-old daughter Wendy, joined him.
'Me and my siblings, this country is all we've ever known. This country is where we grew up, we know everything here,' Wendy Alas said.
'It's so heartbreaking, and I don't know what I would do in a situation where my family or any of my other families like my aunts, my uncles, were sent back and I wouldn't be able to see them again,' Wendy Alas said.
As the crowd formed and speakers aired concerns, protesters chanted, 'One, two, three, four, immigrants are worth fighting for,' and, 'Five, six, seven, eight, no more ICE in our state.'
'Say it once, say it twice, we will not put up with ICE,' they chanted, accompanied by drums and megaphones.
Groups involved in the protest included Tallahassee Immigrant Rights Alliance, Leon County Democratic Environmental Caucus, Young Democratic Socialists of America, Students for a Democratic Society, Voices United Gadsden, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Food Not Bombs
Protesters held up signs reading things like, 'Abolish ICE,' 'Due process for all,' 'Let people work,' 'No 287(g),' and 'Melt ICE.'
'When our communities are under attack, we stand up and fight back. Politicians won't help us, the people in power don't want to help us, so we have to show them that we won't stand for it and the people will rise up,' Joelle Nunez, an organizer with Tallahassee Immigrant Rights Alliance, said through a loudspeaker.
'If they're focused on gang members and drug dealers, why are they focusing on arresting people that are simply trying to earn a living for their family?' Nunez told protesters.
Nunez, an FSU senior in biology, said she would ask politicians to 'stop facilitating these immigration raids.'
'Florida, of all the states in the whole United States, has the most 287(g) agreements; we have a Immigration Enforcement Council now and, all in all, we're not only taking Trump's immigration policies in hand, but actually like stepping them up on the local level, and I think that's not right. What we need to be seeing is a sort of, some type of opposition to the immigration policies,' Nunez told the Phoenix.
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