TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As President-elect Donald Trump pledges to carry out mass deportations after taking office next week, local law enforcement officials are waiting to see how much the government will ask — or require — them to cooperate with federal immigration agents in Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis this week said he wants local officials to help detain and deport people who are in the country illegally and living in Florida, where it is estimated that 1 million people could be targeted by Trump’s deportation plans. If locals do not fully comply, DeSantis said he is willing to remove them from office.

“We want to make sure that we are expanding our existing authorities so that local and state officials are empowered — and the federal government would have to bless this and I think they will — they should be empowered to detain and deport people who are here illegally,” DeSantis said Wednesday.

Efforts by local law enforcement to get involved in federal immigration enforcement have been legally fraught in the past, including findings of racial profiling in Latino communities. Some sheriffs said publicly last year that they would be uncomfortable taking an active role in immigration enforcement, citing issues of trust in the communities they’re tasked with protecting.

The governor’s proposal has already been met with pushback from the Republican legislative leaders, who said it is “completely irresponsible” for DeSantis to try and get ahead of Trump’s formal orders. They added that “uninformed or ill-timed state action” could end up hurting Trump’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, and saidthat the governor hadn’t yet released specifics for them to consider.

At the local level, several sheriffs have declined to say what they make of the governor’s proposals, but say they plan to follow all applicable laws when enacted. In Miami-Dade County, where half the population was born in another country, Trump-endorsed Sheriff Rosanna Cordero-Stutz said her office will continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement officials in county jails.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who is the legislative committee chair for the Florida Sheriffs Association, said local law enforcement agencies only have the ability to hold undocumented immigrants in custody for up to 48 hours if a federal immigration agent sends a detainer request for a detainee.

“The only role today that anybody can have in Florida is the county jail,” said Gualtieri, who was in Tallahassee on Wednesday meeting with state lawmakers. “That’s all we can do right now. Until we see something that comes out of the federal government, it is impossible to know what the options are, what the parameters are, or what can be done.”

“Until we see it on paper, it doesn’t exist,” he added.

The Trump administration would need to make changes at the federal level to expand local cooperation outside of the jails, and even then, the changes would not come overnight, Gualtieri said.

That’s because local law enforcement agencies would need to enroll in a federal immigration program and go through weeks of training. It is also unclear exactly what Trump intends to implement at the federal level, or how long it would take for any changes to kick in.

Currently, there is a federal immigration program — known as 287g — that allows deputies and officers to interrogate and identify undocumented immigrants who are booked in jails and prisons. DeSantis wants to “mandate maximum participation” in that program.

The federal immigration program does not allow street enforcement at the moment. That authority was terminated after Department of Justice investigations found that some localities were engaging in racial profiling, including “sweeps” in Latino neighborhoods and unlawfully detaining and arresting Latinos.

“If anybody says that police officers or deputy sheriffs will be used to investigate or enforce or cooperate on the street, as far as making arrests or doing investigations, there’s simply no legal basis for that,” Gualtieri said. “That’s off the table. It can’t happen.”

Glimpses of DeSantis’ vision

Publicly, DeSantis has released an infographic with bullet points on immigration enforcement ideas, but no specific legislative language has been filed that could show what his office is asking the Legislature to consider.

But privately to legislative leaders, according to a list of policy proposals obtained by POLITICO Florida, the governor offered specific policy details on immigration. The memo includes a proposal to charge law enforcement officers with misdemeanors and elected officials with felonies if they do not fully cooperate with the 287g program and a requirement that all state and local law enforcement agencies train at least 10 percent of their workforce to assist federal immigration enforcement, including deportations.

The governor’s office has declined for weeks to provide specifics to the Herald/Times about his immigration plans, including how the governor wants to assist with the detention of undocumented immigrants.

Aggressive efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants could be dramatic in Florida. About 5 percent of the state’s population — or about 1 million people — could be expelled under Trump’s mass deportation plans, according to a report released by a Washington think tank and immigration advocacy group.

Without specifics, the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office and the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office said they would plan to enforce all applicable Florida laws and assist the federal government when appropriate.

Last June, when Miami-Dade’s new sheriff was running for the post, she did not support local law enforcement “enforcing immigration or any federal law.” Last week, she clarified that while the federal government is in charge of enforcing federal immigration laws, the sheriff’s office will “continue to assist all of our local, state and federal partners when they request our assistance in matters within our jurisdiction.”

When asked about the governor’s intent to require locals to enforce federal immigration laws, the office said it will “continue to turn over any illegal immigrant that is arrested with any type of immigration detainer or hold to federal authorities” and that it would “adhere to and enforce all applicable Florida state statutes.”

Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, who has won two elections since DeSantis appointed him to the post in 2019, did not respond to requests seeking comment on what he thought of the governor’s proposal. Last year, Tony said he would not want his deputies to take part in Trump’s deportation plans, in part because it could create distrust in community policing.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said in an email Monday that it was unaware of what the governor was proposing, but that deputies would uphold the laws set forth by the legislative branch and “assist federal agencies to the extent permissible and possible.”

“Should additional legislative requirements be set, we will adjust our policies accordingly,” Amanda Granit, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office said.

Gualtieri said Floridians should keep in mind what the law is today.

“Citizens should not be concerned today that local law enforcement is going to be going out and doing immigration investigations and making arrests of people for immigration law violations who weren’t committing other crimes because that option does not exist under federal law,” he said.

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