Tropic Air Rescue Ambulances Serve Deportation Depot as Byron Donalds Weighs in

A South Florida air-charter company identified as Tropic Air Rescue is running ambulances at the ICE detention facility at Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, known as Deportation Depot. State records show owner Anthony Marinello received a Florida ground ambulance license on September 3, 2026, one day after the facility began accepting detainees.

The company’s link to urgent transport appears in the license and a subcontracting arrangement, but those records do not establish which vehicle handled any particular emergency. The facility is not relying on Baker County Fire and Rescue for much emergency help.

Detainees described frequent ambulance sightings in calls recorded by an advocate and translated from Spanish. Marinello described getting the vehicles and license as a response to a contract.

“It’s called a contract,” Marinello said. “We had no reason to have it until we had a reason to have it. That’s what it’s all about. They give you a reason: We want that to happen. So, okay. This is how we make it happen. We get the ambulances, we get the license, and we’re able to proceed with it.”

A license and subcontract connect Marinello to the ambulance work

The contract was not a direct state agreement with Marinello’s company. In 2025, emergency management contractor Robbie Meek subcontracted Marinello under a $40 million agreement between IRG Global Emergency Management and Florida to transport detainees. Marinello declined to say how much he earns from ambulance services and deportation flights.

Florida’s ground-ambulance license rules require a company to meet equipment and staffing requirements, including retaining a medical director. State records name Donald Locasto as the company’s top doctor. He is a former fire department medical director and a professor in Cincinnati.

Baker County records also show personal insurance cards for three vehicles belonging to Access Restoration Services, another company associated with Meek. Those records do not establish who owns the broader ambulance fleet.

Ambulance sightings do not establish what care a detainee received

The calls give detainees’ accounts of seeing ambulances, not medical records or details about individual patients. Locasto said he spends half the year in Ohio and the other half in South Florida, and that he has no concerns about the care detainees receive.

The sightings alone cannot show whether a particular person received timely treatment or what condition prompted a transport. They also do not resolve broader concerns about medical care in immigration detention.

A PAC contribution drew scrutiny, but Donalds has not weighed in

In October 2026, the company made a six-figure contribution to a political action committee connected to Gov.-elect Byron Donalds. Marinello said the donation had nothing to do with the detention-center work. State records show no earlier political donations by the company before its subcontracting arrangement.

In September 2026, Democratic candidate David Jolly, Donalds’s opponent, called for an investigation after a critical inspector general report. Donalds’s view of the ambulance arrangement remains unknown. The contribution does not establish that it influenced the subcontract.

Florida’s contract tracking system shows that nearly $38 million has been paid to IRG for its work at the Sanderson facility, with almost $7 million changing hands on Nov. 3, Election Day.