A surge in immigration arrests in South Florida has alarmed immigrant rights advocates and detainee families, who are pleading for local law enforcement authorities to end their cooperation with federal immigration agencies in detaining suspected undocumented immigrants.
"The recent surge in immigration arrests is tearing families apart and creating a climate of fear across our communities," said Yareliz Mendez-Zamora, an organizer for the American Friends Service Committee. "No one should be afraid to take their child to school, seek medical care, report a crime, or go to work because local officials have chosen to aid a mass deportation agenda."
Mendez-Zamora and others spoke out Wednesday morning at a news conference to call attention to the increased number of arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and local police.
The news conference was held outside the Miramar office of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations.
READ MORE: Families, advocates protest 'inhumane' conditions at downtown Miami Federal Detention Center
The immigrant advocates are especially concerned about Haitian immigrants, whose Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, expired Monday, leaving more than 150,000 in Florida without any immediate protection from deportation.
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.
Haitians were first granted TPS in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision last month, allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria through TPS, exposing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to potential deportation.
The immigrant rights activists will ask the City of Miami to dismantle policies that contribute to what they call "family separation and the criminalization of immigrant communities."
Advocates also warn that the uptick in enforcement has placed extreme strain on detention capacity across South Florida.
According to immigrant advocates, the increased arrest volume has led to overcrowding and abysmal conditions at makeshift detention sites, including the Miramar ICE-ERO office itself and the federal detention facility located in downtown Miami.
Copyright 2026 WLRN
