FIU police sign on to help DeSantis and Trump with immigration enforcement
School police officers at Florida International University will soon begin training to learn how to enforce immigration laws on campus.
Florida International University confirmed on Friday that it has enrolled in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as 287(g) that will allow campus police to stop, question and in some cases detain people who they suspect are in the country illegally.
The partnership with the federal government comes as a growing number of FIU students are becoming anxious amid reports of international students being detained, deported and having their visas revoked. In the last month, 18 FIU students have lost their F-1 visa status, which allows international students to live and study in the U.S.
Read more: Visa crackdown leaves FIU’s foreign students silenced by fear
FIU serves a largely Hispanic student body — about 68 percent according to the U.S. News and World Report. Many students are permanent residents and almost 600 are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides temporary protection from deportation for some immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.
The university’s decision comes as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to pressure local and state law enforcement agencies to enter into partnerships with federal immigration authorities to help the Trump administration find and arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Since February, more than 100 police forces across Florida have rushed to meet the call and quickly helped put the state on the vanguard of President Donald Trump’s plan to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.
Now, FIU is among the few public universities in Florida to sign on to help with federal immigration enforcement.
The University of South Florida and the University of Florida have also signed on to similar agreements, as reported by the Tampa Bay Times. Florida Atlantic University has announced its intentions to sign an agreement as well.
A spokesperson for the university told the Miami Herald in an email Friday that its police department would be entering into the agreement to comply with DeSantis’ “directive to law enforcement agencies.”
Florida statutes require law enforcement agencies to fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but it only explicitly requires sheriffs and chief correctional officers who operate county detention facilities to enroll in the 287(g) program, which has three models. State law does not make any mention of university police departments.
The university’s alignment with DeSantis’ agenda is not surprising, though.
The school’s interim president, Jeanette Nuñez, served as the governor’s lieutenant governor up until February. In January, Nuñez also reversed course on her prior arguments that undocumented college students should have access to in-state tuition, saying the state of Florida should not be “in the business of providing this benefit.”
International students on campus were already on edge. Many told the Herald they have been scared of speaking about their status, getting involved in any political activity and are scrubbing their social media of anything political. But knowing FIU’s police is participating in the immigration crackdowns is a new cause for anxiety.
“It feels like it is almost unsafe for international students to go out publicly at this point,” said Bayan Abedulazis, a student activist at FIU.
“I am completely distressed,” an F-1 visa holder at FIU from India told the Miami Herald.
This story was originally published April 11, 2025 at 9:02 PM.
