Why Florida’s public universities are collaborating with ICE

Over the last few months, the Trump administration has intensified its attacks on elite, Ivy League institutions like Columbia and Harvard, enacting sweeping funding cuts and even threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status.

But what’s happening on the campuses of state schools is much less covered. Take for example the public university system in Florida. For years, Gov. Ron DeSantis has used public schools at all levels as the battleground for what he calls a war on “woke” — and punched his ticket to national prominence.

And it’s Florida where journalist Josh Moody found his most recent exposé for Inside Higher Ed. 

Though elite universities in the Northeast have largely fought deportation efforts spearheaded by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DeSantis has openly cooperated with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even appointing university presidents who are friendly to this mission.

Today, Explained host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Moody about his findings, which uncovered formal cooperation agreements between many of Florida’s public universities and ICE that has led to revoked visas, alarmed faculties, and student protests.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

What’s going on here with the Florida state schools? Is this a rebrand to ICE-U? What are they doing here? 

You’ve probably not heard of some of these schools because it’s the Florida State University system, which has 12 members, ranging from large schools with tens of thousands of students to New College of Florida, which has about 800 students. At least 10 of those institutions have signed agreements with ICE, which essentially would give their campus police departments immigration enforcement powers, allowing them to question, arrest, and prepare charges for those they suspect of immigration violations.

These agreements, as one expert explained to me, are “force multipliers for ICE.”

And basically these agreements, as one expert explained to me, are “force multipliers for ICE.” So if you wanted to have more immigration enforcement, you would sign an agreement with ICE to delegate that power locally. This is just a way for Florida to expand its immigration enforcement capabilities. The governor, as I mentioned before, has taken a hard line on immigration. 

He ran for president previously. I wouldn’t be surprised if he does so again, and that could be part of his long-term strategy. In this way, he’s sort of outflanking Trump on immigration. 

And this is just a fun question I love to ask while we’re talking about this stuff. Where did Ron DeSantis go to school again? 

Yale, right? Or was it Harvard? 

It was both! Anyway, have any students been detained or deported yet at these Florida state schools like we’ve seen at Columbia? 

Eighteen students at Florida International University and eight students at the University of Florida have had their visas revoked.

What does that mean? Were they deported?

They would have to leave the country. It doesn’t necessarily mean that ICE is going to come scoop them up in a van and facilitate that process, but they would essentially have to begin the process of leaving the country. 

And do we know what specifically these students have had their visas revoked for? 

We do not, but that is not uncommon. That has been the case across the US. Some students have been targeted for their speech. You look at the situation at Tufts and Columbia where students were active in pro-Palestinian protests and the Trump administration has claimed they’re antisemitic and pro-Hamas, but has not provided any evidence that they have done anything illegal. In other cases, they’ve had visas revoked for crimes committed years ago.

And these institutions themselves have often been given no explanation when student statuses were changed — and sometimes they’ve discovered it by looking in their own systems and seeing that those statuses had been revoked.

We don’t know how many international students have been caught up in this, but one of my fellow reporters at Inside Higher Ed is keeping a nationwide database and we have counted at least 1,680 students at 250 colleges who have lost visas. [Editor’s note: These figures reflect the latest numbers and have been updated since this Today, Explained episode first aired.] 

Does that mean there are other university systems around the country that are signing these kinds of agreements with ICE, that are cooperating with ICE at this level? 

Florida institutions are the only ones to have signed agreements with ICE. The professors that I spoke with, the legal experts for this piece, believe this is unprecedented. Neither were aware of another university ever signing into what is known as a 287(g) agreement with ICE. It’s sort of a new frontier in immigration enforcement on college campuses.

Are students on the campuses of these universities upset to hear that they’re signing into agreements with ICE? 

Yes. There were protests at Florida International University today, which had a board meeting. The students that I hear from are often upset about what is happening in the state, not just around immigration, but what has been a broader effort by Florida Republicans to control all aspects of the university, whether that is hiring politicians and lawmakers into the presidencies or overhauling general education requirements to minimize certain disciplines — like sociology — that Florida state officials have deemed liberal.

How do you feel what’s going on at ICE-U down in Florida fits into this other fight that we’re seeing in the Northeast, with Trump going to war with the elite universities?

In Florida, this is being done by the state dictating to these universities: “You need to do this to basically carry out state goals around immigration enforcement.” Whereas the other examples at places like Harvard and Columbia is the Trump administration more or less trying to bring higher education to heel, by making an example of some of the most visible universities, where there have been the most visible pro-Palestinian campus protests over the last year.

If they crumble, it seems only likely that your local institution is going to crumble when faced with the same threats.

People are really freaked out. Professors are worried about academic freedom. But also nationally, people are worried too. They see Harvard and Columbia being at the forefront of this fight, and even though they’re not at all representative of higher education broadly, these are very visible universities that everyone pays attention to. If they crumble, it seems only likely that your local institution is going to crumble when faced with the same threats.

On the show today, we’ve been talking about these two extremes in this culture war right now. On one end, you’ve got the oldest and most prestigious universities in the country. Then, over here, we’ve got this pocket of Florida state schools that are just throwing up their hands and complying with ICE. Where does that leave in your estimation, everyone in between those two extremes?

A lot of that comes down to public or private control. If you are a public university in a dark red state, you should expect that this is coming. If you are at a public university in Texas, you might not be that far behind Florida in terms of an action like this and that’s what I’m hearing from experts too. If you’re in a blue state, you are a little bit more isolated if you’re a public institution there. Private institutions in both will have a lot more latitude.

I don’t like to speculate, but I think it is entirely possible that the Trump administration looks at something like this and says, “Why don’t we do this nationwide?”

What a time.

Absolutely.