Florida Emergency Management Head Quietly Told Local Officials To Gather Data On Immigrants

by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix

The head of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management sent a memo last week ordering local officials to gather personal data about immigrants they suspected of living in the country without authorization, even those who aren’t arrested.

DEM Director Kevin Guthrie’s previously unreported directive went too far for sheriffs in the new State Immigration Enforcement Council, who told Florida Phoenix they found out about the agency’s involvement in data collection for immigration enforcement after the memo went into effect on April 1.

Law enforcement stopped the implementation of the March 31 memo after sheriffs voiced their objections. Police would’ve had to file forms including people’s addresses, employers, phone numbers, criminal history, and picture if they suspected a person they came in contact with lacked legal status in this country, according to the memo obtained by the Phoenix.

DEM also required data collection when police questioned but didn’t detain or arrest someone. The statute cited in the memo gives the emergency management agency authority to collect data on major fires, airplane crashes, bomb threats, natural disasters, and other large-scale incidents.

Sheriffs oppose data sharing DEM proposed.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who chairs the immigration enforcement council, said during the group’s second meeting Wednesday that Guthrie’s directive contained a “fatal flaw” — it skipped the local law enforcement chains of command, blocking them from supervising their officers.

“They were just eager to collect the data. Once again, there was no malice,” Judd said in a phone interview with the Phoenix Wednesday. “It was just everybody wanting to be game-on and immediately respond to the mission that was given to us.”

Judd agreed that data collection should be narrower and only for people the federal government lacks information on.

“We’ve got to get our sea legs under us,” he said.

The sensitivity of the data sought also concerned Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who said the state shouldn’t aim to duplicate information the federal government already has. Senate President Ben Albritton nominated Gualtieri to the council.

“It was clunky because we don’t submit information, especially some of that information in there is confidential information like criminal history information, that we would be prohibited by law from submitting to emergency managers,” Gualtieri said in a phone interview.

However, the memo underscores a growing involvement by the emergency agency in new internal immigration enforcement efforts that the DeSantis administration is ramping up to help President Donald Trump carry out mass deportations by collaborating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Larry Keefe, whom DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet appointed as executive director of the State Immigration Enforcement Board, said he’d pitched the Trump administration on a plan to let the DEM house and transport immigrants awaiting deportation.

“We have the world-class, absolute best in Kevin Guthrie, the director of the Division of Emergency Management, and he is really good about safely moving people and stuff around in high-stress, high-pressure emergency situations, including soft-sided facilities, hard-sided facilities — whatever the state of the art is, and in the planet Earth on how to house people and move people and feed people, and treat people safely and well, he knows it,” Keefe said during the council’s first meeting on March 31, the same day Guthrie sent the memo on data collection of immigrants.

House Speaker Daniel Perez told reporters he had not been briefed about plans for DEM to house immigrants.

The pause on the DEM memo doesn’t mean local law enforcement won’t collect information about immigrants. The council, comprising four sheriffs and four police chiefs, is still crafting guidelines for how police should collect data and report it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the immigration enforcement board. The council’s next meeting is set for April 16.

“We have to be very careful that our mission doesn’t creep into being ICE junior,” said Naples Police Chief Ciro Dominguez during the Wednesday meeting. “It’s not good for us to get in that role. As the sheriff said, we’re here to help ICE, but we shouldn’t try to be ICE. That’s gonna go back on what we’re all trying to do in our communities.”

Concurrently, the council is working on guidelines to disburse the $250 million for a grant program that local law enforcement agencies can qualify for to pay overtime for officers who will soon start a 40-hour training program to qualify for federal authorization to act as immigration enforcement officials.

Out of the nearly 200 agreements with ICE that sheriffs’ offices, state agencies, and local police departments have entered into so far, only approximately 1,400 Florida Highway Patrol troopers have completed the online training and are set to gain the federal certification.

However, the immigration enforcement board, comprising Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, must approve the guidelines from the council.

DEM did not respond to the Phoenix’s request for comment.

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