Florida Highway Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the first large-scale immigration enforcement raid inside the city of Pensacola since Gov. Ron DeSantis announced FHP would enforce immigration laws alongside federal agencies like ICE.
The apparent raid occurred at Outerspaces Landscapes at 500 E. Cross St. in the morning hours of Oct. 9.
Several workers appeared to have been arrested. Video posted on social media shows ICE officers, some wearing masks and some not, alongside FHP officers at the business. The streets in a one-block area around the business were blocked by FHP during the raid.
Detained workers were placed in a bus labeled “Escambia County Corrections.”
The News Journal has requested information about the raid from the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, FHP, and Escambia County. So far, Escambia County is the only agency to respond to the News Journal’s request.
Escambia County spokesperson Davis Woods told the News Journal that ICE requested transportation assistance from the county, but any further information about the operation would have to be released by ICE.
“Escambia County Corrections periodically provides resources by request for inter-agency operations where multiple arrests are possible, whether it’s a federal, state or local agency,” Woods said.
Video posted to social media also showed an Escambia County ambulance near the site, but Woods said that ambulance was responding to an unrelated call for service.
Pensacola Police Department spokesperson Mike Wood told the News Journal that PPD was not involved in the raid, but one detective was on scene solely as an observer because it was occurring within the city limits.
Grace Resendez McCaffery, publisher of the Spanish-language newspaper La Costa Latina and founder of the Hispanic Resource Center of Northwest Florida and South Alabama, told the News Journal that several workers were likely arrested at the site, including workers who had legal authorization to work in the United States.
Resendez McCaffery said a woman called her from the bus where the detained workers had been placed. She said the woman was told by one ICE agent she wouldn’t be arrested after showing her documentation, but another said to “take her anyway.”
“They’re not even distinguishing between documented and undocumented,” Resendez McCaffery said.
Resendez McCaffery said it’s unclear how many workers were arrested as she’s had several families reach out to her. One report she received said it could be as many as 30, though she is not confident in that number. She said those detained were told they were being transported to the Escambia County jail.
Through her work with the Hispanic Resource Center of Northwest Florida and South Alabama, Resendez McCaffery has monitored the stepped-up immigration under the Trump administration. She noted that, although there have been other raids in Northwest Florida and many in Baldwin County, Alabama, this was the first large-scale raid to occur in Pensacola.
By 11 a.m., a few agents were still on site, including one wearing a mask, but the operation appeared to be largely concluded.
