COLUMN: When Red States Become Zealous Accomplices of the Deportation Machine

DeSantis Casts the Net Wider Than Is Reasonable

Ron DeSantis doesn’t do things by halves. In February 2025, the governor of Florida announced the expansion of 287(g) agreements to agencies that have absolutely nothing to do with traditional law enforcement. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Florida State Guard… agencies whose primary mission has never been to track down immigrants. But DeSantis has a vision: to make Florida “the model for states in the fight against illegal immigration.” Nearly 800 wildlife officers now hold ICE credentials. They can arrest, detain, and interrogate. They have become an extension of the federal deportation machine.

Laws That Enforce Cooperation

In February 2025, DeSantis signed a law requiring all state agencies to use their “best efforts” to support federal enforcement of immigration laws. No wiggle room. No gray area. Cooperate or face the consequences. This approach is spreading like a virus across Republican-led states. Tennessee has passed eight immigration-related laws in ten months. Laws that hold charities liable if they shelter undocumented immigrants who commit crimes. Laws that invalidate certain driver’s licenses issued in other states. Punitive, cruel legislation, designed to make life impossible.

I read these laws and wonder: where has humanity gone? Holding charities responsible for crimes committed by people they’ve helped? That’s madness. It’s institutionalized cruelty. And DeSantis struts around, proud of his handiwork. He talks about “restoring the rule of law.” But what rule of law? The one that turns wildlife officers into the Gestapo? The one that punishes compassion?

From 88 to 650 detainees in just a few months

In August 2025, West Virginia signed a 287(g) agreement with ICE, authorizing the National Guard and state police to conduct immigration enforcement operations. Republican Governor Patrick Morrisey hailed this “unprecedented coordination,” which he said would “significantly speed up the process of arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal aliens.” The results were immediate and brutal. In August, the state was holding 88 undocumented immigrants. By January 2026, that number had skyrocketed to more than 650 arrests—a 638 percent increase in just a few months.

Illegal Arrests Uphheld by the Courts

But this touted efficiency hides a darker reality. In early January 2026, the West Virginia State Police pulled over a vehicle, allegedly because its license plates were illegible. Two occupants—immigrants from Venezuela and Honduras—were handed over to federal immigration agents. A federal judge ruled in February that these men had been unlawfully detained. They were cooperating with immigration authorities and posed no threat to national security. “There is not a shred of evidence to support the government’s position,” the judge stated during the hearing. “Not a shred. Not a shred at all.” The court ordered their immediate release.

Not a iota of evidence. That’s where we stand. People arrested, imprisoned, separated from their families without the slightest legal justification. And meanwhile, Morrisey is patting himself on the back, talking about a historic success. What success? That of trampling on fundamental rights? That of turning his state into a detention camp? I’m sickened. Deeply sickened.

Direct collaboration with the White House

Tennessee makes no secret of its ambitions. In January 2026, the state’s Republican legislature unveiled a package of eight bills presented as the result of “months of collaboration with the White House.” Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration policy, worked directly with Tennessee lawmakers to make the state a “model for the rest of the nation.” Republican Senator Jack Johnson put it bluntly: “We’re not just going to cooperate with the White House and our federal immigration agents—we’re going to do everything we can to ensure they succeed.”

Laws Targeting Every Aspect of Life

The proposed legislative package is terrifying in its scope. It would require local law enforcement and governments to cooperate with ICE under threat of sanctions. It would require immigrants to prove their legal status before accessing any public benefits. It would force children to verify their immigration status before they can enroll in school. Every interaction with the state becomes a potential checkpoint. Every public service becomes an opportunity to track down and deport. Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, sums it up: “They’re mandating cooperation with ICE and are really trying to commandeer state and local resources to support the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.”

Children. They’re targeting children. They want to force kids to prove their immigration status before they can go to school. It’s inhumane. It’s monstrous. And Miller—this guy who has spent his career dehumanizing immigrants—is working hand in hand with Tennessee to create a police state. I’m at a loss for words. I’m overwhelmed with anger. How can anyone be so cruel? How can anyone sleep at night knowing they’ve created a system that terrorizes entire families?

Fear as Public Policy

The consequences of these policies go far beyond arrest statistics. They create a climate of terror that paralyzes entire communities. In January 2026, the Nashville area was hit by a devastating ice storm that killed more than two dozen people and left residents without electricity or water for over a week. But some immigrants were too afraid to seek shelter at emergency centers. “Our communities are terrified,” said Sherman Luna. “You have a segment of the population that doesn’t feel safe enough to go to these shelters.” People chose to risk hypothermia rather than risk arrest.

The Local Economy Is Collapsing

In Chicago, following the arrival of the Border Patrol in November 2025, economic activity collapsed in neighborhoods like Little Village and other areas with high concentrations of immigrants. Stores closed. Restaurants stood empty. Customers stayed home, terrified of being arrested. In Charlotte, more than 30,000 students were absent from school after the Border Patrol arrived. In Minneapolis, public schools canceled classes for two days and are now offering the option of remote learning for a month. Normal life has come to a halt. Replaced by fear, uncertainty, and chaos.

Thirty thousand children absent from school. Thirty thousand. Let that number sink in. Families who would rather freeze to death than ask for help. Is this the America that Trump and his allies are building? A country where fear reigns? Where children can no longer go to school? Where people die because they’re too afraid to ask for help? I refuse to accept this. I refuse to normalize this cruelty.

One Hour of Training to Ruin Lives

The Florida wildlife officers who arrested the fishermen in August 2025 joked about their lack of training. “We’re like newborn giraffes with shaky legs trying to get around,” one of them said after the arrest. He revealed that he had received about an hour of online training before being sent into the field to detain immigrants. One hour. To learn how to exercise powers that can destroy families, separate parents from their children, and deport people from the only country they know. Former immigration officials have warned that inexperienced and untrained agents increase the risk of violence and pose a threat to public safety.

Violence as a Predictable Consequence

These warnings proved prophetic. In January 2026, in Minneapolis, an American citizen, Renee Nicole Good, died after being shot by an ICE agent. A few hours later, Border Patrol agents clashed with community members outside a local high school, reportedly using pepper spray on students. In Chicago, agents used tear gas and rubber bullets, and in one instance, even rappelled from a helicopter onto the roof of an apartment building to carry out immigration-related arrests. Violence is no longer the exception. It has become the norm.

Renee Nicole Good. Say her name. An American citizen, killed by an ICE agent. And for what? For nothing. For being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her death could have been prevented. If those agents had been properly trained. If this administration hadn’t turned the enforcement of immigration laws into urban warfare. But no. They chose speed over safety. Efficiency over humanity. And now, a woman is dead. And no one will be held accountable.

Billions for the Deportation Machine

In July 2025, Congress granted the Department of Homeland Security a staggering four-year budget of $170 billion to expand what was already the world’s largest detention and deportation machine. That’s five times the current combined annual budget of ICE and the Border Patrol. Forty-five billion to expand ICE’s detention capacity. Forty-six point six billion for the construction of additional border barriers and surveillance systems. This money could have funded schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. Instead, it is funding the separation of families and the destruction of communities.

Lives shattered, families destroyed

Behind every statistic lies a human story. Children coming home from school to find that their parents have been arrested. Families separated for months, years—sometimes forever. People who have lived in the United States for decades, who have built businesses, raised children, and contributed to their communities, suddenly torn away from everything they know. The Trump administration claims to target “the worst of the worst,” but the data tells a different story. In January 2026, only 26 percent of those detained by ICE had a criminal conviction. Twenty-six percent had a pending criminal charge. And 48 percent had only an immigration-related charge.

One hundred seventy billion dollars. For what? To destroy lives? To terrorize communities? To tear families apart? That money could change lives. It could build schools, fund health programs, repair roads. But no. It funds cruelty. It funds separation. It funds pain. And meanwhile, children mourn their missing parents. Families are torn apart. Communities are being destroyed. For what? To satisfy one man’s thirst for power and the toxic ideology of his accomplices?

A Strategy to Avoid Public Outrage

Experts suggest that the expansion of 287(g) programs serves a strategic purpose: to soften public criticism. Instead of frightening images of people pinned to the ground in the street by officers in body armor, immigration enforcement simply becomes just another routine bureaucratic interaction. Cori Alonso-Yoder, a law professor and director of the immigration clinic at the University of Maryland, explains: “Street-level enforcement is not the direction in which the Trump administration sees the political appetite heading.” When people saw what immigration enforcement looked like in their neighborhoods and communities, we saw protests and outrage. What 287(g) does is bring enforcement back behind closed doors.”

The Normalization of the Unacceptable

This strategy works. Away from the cameras, in local jails and police stations, thousands of people are arrested, detained, and deported without the public ever knowing. From January to October 2025, 52 percent of ICE arrests took place in jails, particularly in cooperative states like Texas and Florida. No viral videos. No protests. Just a bureaucratic machine grinding up human lives amid general indifference. And that is perhaps the most terrifying part: the normalization of this cruelty. The silent acceptance of a system that treats human beings as criminals simply for existing.

Behind closed doors. That’s where they want it to happen. Out of sight. Away from the cameras. Far from public outrage. Because they know. They know that if people really saw what was going on, they’d be horrified. So they hide it. They normalize it. They turn cruelty into an administrative procedure. And us? We let it happen. We look the other way. We accept the unacceptable. And that’s what terrifies me the most. Not the cruelty itself, but our ability to ignore it.

A Historic Turning Point or a Temporary Anomaly

Public opinion is beginning to shift. A February 2026 Quinnipiac University poll revealed that 60 percent of voters believed the federal government was too harsh in its treatment of undocumented immigrants, while more than half said the administration’s immigration policy was making the country less safe. But is this shift in opinion coming too late? The damage is already immense. Communities are terrorized. Families are torn apart. Lives are shattered. And Republican states continue to double down, signing new agreements, passing new laws, and finding new ways to make life impossible for immigrants.

The Legacy We Will Leave

History will judge this period. It will judge the governors who turned their states into detention camps. It will judge the lawmakers who passed cruel laws. It will judge the agents who carried out these orders without asking questions. But it will also judge us—those of us who stood by and did nothing. We who knew and did nothing. The question is not whether these policies will outlive the Trump administration. The question is whether we will survive what they have made of us. Whether we will be able to look at ourselves in the mirror knowing that we let it happen. That we accepted it. That we were complicit through our silence.

I end this column with a heavy heart. Because I know that tomorrow, it will continue. The arrests. The separations. The cruelty. And I wonder: when will we say “stop”? When will we decide that enough is enough? That we can no longer accept this? I don’t know. But I know one thing: history will not forgive us. It will not forgive our silence. It will not forgive our complicity. It will not forgive our cowardice. And it will be right.

Signed, Jacques Provost