Florida troopers tapped surveillance network for immigration searches, raising alarm

Florida Highway Patrol has tapped into a vast private surveillance network — performing hundreds of searches for license plates scanned by cameras controlled by the controversial surveillance company Flock Safety — to aid in immigration crackdowns, according to newly obtained search logs reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight.

The logs show that between March 13 and May 5, state troopers conducted more than 250 immigration-related searches using Flock’s automatic license plate reader system. Those searches spiked in the week before and during Operation Tidal Wave, a high-profile sweep coordinated by federal and state agencies that led to the arrests of more than 1,100 people in Florida. 

More than 100 law enforcement agencies in Florida use Flock, according to the search logs, including the DeSoto and Manatee sheriff’s offices and the Sarasota and Venice police departments. Fewer than 10 appear to have run immigration-related searches in recent months, though. Of those, the Florida Highway Patrol has conducted by far the most. (Read how the Suncoast Searchlight team found, analyzed and verified the data here.)

The practice has drawn concern from civil rights advocates, who warn that using surveillance technology to aid deportation stokes fear in immigrant communities. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials say adding more responsibilities to an already stretched workforce pulls troopers away from their core mission of ensuring road safety.

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“It is shameful that they are using license plate readers, this technology, to target immigrant people and people who are really just going to work,” said Ruth Beltran, a community organizer with the Tampa Bay Immigrant Solidarity Network, when told of Suncoast Searchlight’s findings.

The law enforcement database, obtained by researchers through a public records request and first reported by 404 Media, shows FHP ran searches tagged with phrases such as “ICE,” “ICE administrative warrant,” “immigration overstay,” “assist ice” and “immigration investigation.”

The 404 Media report found that local and state police across the country conducted these types of searches “either at the behest of the federal government or as an ‘informal’ favor to federal law enforcement.”

License plate cameras automatically scan and capture passing vehicles’ license plate details — creating a record of their locations at specific times, which law enforcement agencies can use in investigations. For example, in a hit-and-run case, an officer might search the software to learn where the offending vehicle regularly drives and then go to those locations to catch the driver.

It is unclear at what stage of immigration investigations FHP troopers are using Flock and whether information is shared directly with federal agents. Automatic license plate readers do not store information on people but on cars, although Flock is launching a product that would expand its cameras to link vehicles to drivers, and drivers to their wider networks. 

Flock Safety’s website touts its technology as an innovative tool to fight crime, and cites “checks and balances to ensure the ethical use of our technology.” Some agencies that use Flock prohibit its use for immigration enforcement, but it’s unclear whether Flock has a similar policy of its own.

But the company has amassed an unusually large and centralized trove of data on drivers across the country, and civil rights and privacy experts have been raising alarms about the company for years. In 2022, the ACLU warned in a paper that the technology could be abused or used for immigration enforcement. 

“It’s bad enough when law enforcement engages in such mass surveillance, but to have such data flowing through a private company creates an additional set of incentives for abuse,” warned ACLU researcher Jay Stanley. 

Denver’s city council last month voted not to extend a contract with Flock, citing fears that its cameras would be used to ensnare and deport undocumented immigrants in the community.

The local immigration enforcement push has raised separate concerns within law enforcement itself. 

Spencer Ross, president of the Florida Highway Patrol Fraternal Order of Police, said troopers are already understaffed and adding more duties comes at a cost to public safety. 

“Every time you take somebody off the road to do something special, no matter what it is — it doesn’t have to be immigration — it reduces the number of people there to do our primary duty,” Ross said.

Florida Highway Patrol did not respond to multiple calls and emails from Suncoast Searchlight seeking interviews in May and June. Flock Safety also did not respond to questions about the ways FHP has used its database.

How troopers used Flock to support immigration crackdowns

When running a Flock search, officers usually enter a reason for the query. Other details, such as agency, officer name and time of search, are also captured. 

According to records reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight, state troopers routinely tag searches with keywords like “criminal investigation,” “fleeing,” “stolen vehicle” and “crash.” But in recent months, they’ve increasingly cited immigration-related terms.

The shift coincides with a statewide crackdown on immigration launched after the legislature passed two sweeping immigration enforcement laws in February. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis, who threatened to veto earlier bills that would have reduced his power over immigration enforcement, has leaned heavily on FHP to support mass arrest operations.

“There’s not a single law enforcement agency that’s gotten in this fight more deeply than our FHP troopers,” said DeSantis during a press conference last month.

While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have a contract with Flock, Florida law enforcement agencies that use Flock, including FHP, have signed agreements with ICE that allow them to assist in immigration enforcement.

In the nine months prior to March, FHP did not conduct any immigration-related searches with Flock, according to Searchlight’s analysis. 

But from mid-March through early May, troopers conducted about 32 immigration-related Flock searches per week, with almost half performed in the week before and during Operation Tidal Wave. Of the individuals arrested during that sweep, nearly 40% had no criminal record, according to a press release from DeSantis’s office — a statistic that has alarmed immigrant rights advocates.

Only a handful of other law enforcement agencies in the state appear to have run immigration-related searches in the past year. Officers in Lake, Putnam, Volusia, Bay and Miami-Dade counties each performed fewer than a dozen, using keywords like “border patrol” and “CBP” in addition to “immigration” and “ICE,” according to Searchlight’s analysis.

“We are talking about a disproportionate action that is penalizing people for things that should be addressed within our immigration system,” said Renata Bozzetto, deputy director of Florida Immigrant Coalition, in an interview with Suncoast Searchlight. “I think it’s very important for us to understand who is being targeted by these practices […] we are talking about our neighbors going to work, our neighbors driving to the grocery store or dropping their kids off at school.” 

Beltran, the organizer with Tampa Bay Immigrant Solidarity Network, told Suncoast Searchlight her group gets daily calls from families of immigrants who have been pulled over by state troopers and subsequently detained by federal agents. 

New responsibilities add pressure to Florida Highway Patrol’s limited ranks

While not every trooper is carrying out immigration enforcement duties every day, the additional responsibilities can reduce their capacity for FHP’s core mission: traffic control.

That affects all Florida residents.

During an interview, Ross, the president of the Florida Highway Patrol Fraternal Order of Police, rattled off live response times for calls awaiting FHP troopers in the Orlando area, where he is based. Among the waiting calls were crashes involving injuries.

Three hours and 48 minutes. Four hours and 14 minutes. Two hours and 50 minutes.

When troopers are tied up with other assignments, it not only slows response times, Ross said. It reduces the care they can give to each task, such as helping to calm a young driver at the scene of an accident or waiting with an elderly driver for a family member to pick them up after a crash.

“Now unfortunately we don’t have the luxury to do that,” he said. “The quality of service that we are providing is terribly inadequate.”

Although the strain has intensified under DeSantis’ deportation push, the underlying issues aren’t new. According to Ross, the number of troopers on the roads has remained roughly flat over several decades despite the state’s population boom – and salaries haven’t risen with the increasing demands. 

It’s unclear whether immigration enforcement has affected how often FHP uses Flock for other purposes. Over the past year, troopers gave hundreds of different reasons for their searches with many variations on similar phrases. They most commonly cited criminal investigations.

Sarasota County Commissioner Tom Knight, a former major at FHP who served with the patrol for 20 years and later served as Sarasota County sheriff, said it’s normal for the agency’s priorities to shift with the political winds.

“I got used for different things under different gubernatorial leaderships, and their roles and responsibilities, and the scope of what their roles and responsibilities were would expand and contract pretty regularly,” Knight said about his time at the FHP.

When the agency’s duties change or expand, it can create a burden on local law enforcement to fill in the gaps, he said, adding that it puts “extra responsibilities on local jurisdictions, especially sheriff’s offices.” 

Bozzetto, the deputy director of Florida Immigrant Coalition, echoed the concern that immigration enforcement would pull law enforcement agencies from their public safety mission.

She warned against law enforcement “diverting its attention from public safety and from seeking real criminals or making sure that we are safe to terrifying the community and tearing people apart.”

NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify the policy about using Flock for immigration purposes.

Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter and Alice Herman is an investigative/watchdog reporter for Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.