(FLORIDA) — Florida officials reported more than 25,000 immigration arrests after the state expanded 287(g) enforcement in early 2025, with state troopers accounting for over 10,000 of those arrests.

Officials tied the arrests to Operation Tidal Wave, which they described as “the largest immigration enforcement operation in federal history.” The figures place Florida at the center of a broad state-led immigration push that accelerated after new legislation took effect in February 2025.

Governor Ron DeSantis said the increase followed Florida’s expanded immigration enforcement legislation signed in February 2025. State officials also said Florida has more 287(g) task force officers than any other state.

The arrest totals, presented by Florida officials, have not been described in exactly the same way across public accounts. The clearest statewide figure is more than 25,000 arrests, while another account described the total as “almost 25,000” since February.

That gap is narrow, but it matters in how the state presents the scale of the operation. Florida officials have pushed the higher count while linking it directly to the expansion of 287(g) enforcement, a federal-local program that allows trained local and state officers to carry out some immigration functions.

Under that arrangement, Florida says it has built a larger field presence than any other state. Officials have used that claim to argue the state can move more quickly and on a wider geographic footprint than states that rely more heavily on federal officers alone.

State troopers made over 10,000 of the arrests included in the statewide total. That means troopers accounted for a large share of the arrests Florida has cited since the early 2025 expansion.

The numbers also tie directly to Operation Tidal Wave, the name Florida has used for the wider immigration enforcement campaign. Officials have cast that operation in sweeping terms, calling it the largest of its kind in federal history, though the description remains the state’s own characterization.

Florida has paired that crackdown with a separate initiative focused on children. Operation Locate, run by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, has identified or physically located more than 400 unaccompanied migrant children.

Officials presented Operation Locate as part of the same broader enforcement posture that has defined Florida’s immigration agenda since February 2025. The state has not framed it as an arrest operation in the same way as Operation Tidal Wave, but it sits alongside the arrests as one of the main figures Florida has highlighted.

The three numbers cited most often by the state are the statewide total of more than 25,000 immigration arrests, the trooper share of over 10,000, and the more than 400 unaccompanied children identified or located through Operation Locate. Together, they form the core of Florida’s public account of its immigration enforcement drive.

DeSantis has linked that drive to the legislation he signed in February 2025, presenting the law as the turning point that widened the state’s authority and manpower. Florida’s claim that it now has more 287(g) task force officers than any other state fits the same message: that the state has built an unusually large role for its own agencies in immigration enforcement.

The 25, 000 immigration arrests figure has become a shorthand for that argument, even as public references to the total have varied between “almost 25,000” and “more than 25,000.” Florida officials have stood by the broader account that arrests surged after the state expanded 287(g) enforcement in early 2025.

Those figures offer a snapshot of how Florida wants its immigration campaign measured: by arrest volume, by the share handled by troopers, and by the reach of related operations such as Operation Tidal Wave and Operation Locate. In that telling, the state’s own agencies are not working at the margins of federal immigration enforcement but helping define its scale.