This series began with its first post February 4. Updates quickly followed: #1 on February 6; #2 on February 9. Now we are ready for Update #3, the deputizing of college campus police to enforce immigration law.
How fitting that when we think of undocumented immigrants coming across the southern border, we think of the American West with its images of deserts, sand, river gorges, buttes, cowboys, cattle, shallow rivers, watering holes, cottonwood trees, and bluebonnets. I suppose I should mention tumbleweed as well, an illegal alien from Russia, that invaded in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but well, tumbleweed is Russian so that illicit crossing of our nation’s borders is probably okay with the Trump administration.
Part of that nostalgic view of the West is the traveling judge holding court in the local saloon to deal out justice according to his idea of the law. Attorneys not being around, frontier justice was presented as a rough sort of justice enforced by a local sheriff and the men he chose to deputize.
Completing the picture was the outlaw, sometimes a loner but often part of a gang. The sheriff gathered a posse when outlaws were in the area to ride out and bring them in for whatever justice the sheriff had in mind. Printed posters proclaimed in loud, large letters: WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE.
While it is debatable as to whether that remembrance is more 1950s Hollywood than the historical reality, what is not debatable is that vision underlies the deputization of local police and other law enforcement agencies to act as ICE agents under deputizing agreements.
Florida (state motto: where every bad idea is born) leads the way. The governor, senate president, and house speaker had squabbled over what to do when the governor called a special session to ramp up immigration law enforcement. In the end, during a succeeding special session, they enacted a law to force local law enforcement to assist with ICE and immigration enforcement by screening individuals for their status when they are detained or pulled over for a traffic stop.
This effort has now reached Florida’s college campuses. Florida Atlantic University, University of South Florida, and the flagship campus University of Florida are seeking to enter into deputy agreements with federal authorities. Other universities are joining them, including Jacksonville’s University of North Florida.
Joshua Glanzer, spokesperson for FAU, said this, “We are simply following guidance from the Governor’s Feb. 19 directive to state law enforcement agencies, of which FAUPD and other state university police departments are included.”
Under a 287(g) task force model, such as the agreement being pursued by the University of Florida, participating officers would have the authority to interrogate “any alien or person believed to be an alien” about their right to remain in the country, as well as the power to make arrests without a warrant in some cases.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/2025/04/14/florida-universities-to-deputize-campus-police-for-immigration-enforcement/
Students have a different viewpoint from their universities. This new ability is making them feel unsafe and unable to participate in normal campus activities or access other campus resources students need like counseling or health care.
ICE says racial profiling is forbidden under its guidelines for local law enforcement, but let’s tell the truth. Racial profiling is a characteristic of the new administration’s policies overseen by Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff.
One worries that she could be pulled over on the flimsiest of excuses because a campus officer may decide that she doesn’t look like she belongs here, i.e., in the U.S and will be detained. What will happen then? (As if we don’t know.)
She cannot be the only one.
But the officers are being deputized and their posse is riding to root out undocumented immigrant students. This is the new reality descending upon Florida’s college campuses.
Grumpy Old Teacher 