Florida Highway Patrol Faces Added Strains as Immigration Duties Grow

Over the past year, one facet of law enforcement has become an increasingly visible part of the Florida Highway Patrol’s core mission: immigration.

It is one part of an expanding set of duties for the Highway Patrol, which is already strained by staff shortages and pay rates well below those of other states. Trooper advocates say the immigration focus is taking troopers away from their primary duty: keeping the state’s highways safe.

In November and the first three days of December, troopers spent 3,391 hours on immigration enforcement — more than the force spent dealing with cases of people driving under the influence or drug investigation follow-ups, according to troopers’ own accounting of the time they spent on tasks.

Over the same time period, troopers spent 552 hours writing reports for larger crashes, according to the data from Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which houses the force.

The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment by email and telephone about the force’s priorities and approach to immigration.

From Aug. 1 through Jan. 21, the Highway Patrol stopped 6,109 people suspected of being in the country illegally, according to a state dashboard tracking immigration encounters and arrests. That makes it far and away the leading law enforcement agency in referrals to federal immigration authorities. Ranking second is the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, which had 875 over the same time period.

Troopers also staff the gates of state immigration detention facilities, including Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades and Baker County Detention Center. And they deploy at the governor’s will beyond Florida for immigration missions, most recently to patrol the Texas- Mexico border.

Last year, the Highway Patrol created a five-person, statewide immigration unit that looks for people suspected of being in the country illegally and conducts larger immigration operations.

At the same time that their immigration duties were growing, troopers have spent less time over the last few years investigating fatal highway accidents.

In 2019, the Highway Patrol investigated about 31% of all highway crashes. In 2025, with the overall number of fatal highway crashes remaining steady, the agency investigated about 27%, according to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Trooper response times for calls and crashes are also up because there are more people living in and visiting Florida, said Bill Smith, who has been a trooper for nearly 40 years and is president of the Highway Patrol chapter of the Florida Police Benevolent Association. Depending on the county and time of day, it can take between two and four hours for troopers to make it to a crash scene, he said.

“It’s not the patrol’s fault, it’s just the fact that we have more calls for service,” he said. “When you start pulling people off the road to do immigration enforcement and not calls for service, it becomes a concern.”

The department does not publicly publish calls for service or response time data. The state has yet to provide data on crash times in response to a public records request from the Tampa Bay Times.

Public safety advocates say it’s dangerous to pull troopers off the road for any reason beyond their core duties.

“The significant understaffing is a major public safety deficiency in Florida,” said Paul Novack, a Miami attorney and member of the Florida Highway Patrol Advisory Council, a group of business and community leaders in the state who offer input regarding the Highway Patrol and the quality of service it provides to the public. “There are not nearly enough troopers on board to properly cover our state and its highways.”

The state has made clear that immigration will remain a focus for the force.

In its 2026 legislative budget request, the department said the “primary role of FHP is to ensure the safety of drivers and passengers on Florida’s roads.” But it also said immigration remains a core part of the force’s “expanding mission.”

In a meeting with troopers earlier this year, the agency’s director, Dave Kerner, called immigration enforcement the Highway Patrol’s No. 1 priority, Smith said.

“Immigration is the No. 1 priority of the Florida Highway Patrol because it’s the governor’s No. 1 priority,” Smith said. “We’ve gotten very good at it.”

By law, troopers are barred from stopping immigration suspects without cause, but they can pull motorists over for driving offenses and then check their documents. The department uses license plate readers, drones and its aviation unit for immigration enforcement. This year, it is asking the Legislature for money for more tech to assist in detaining more people.

A traffic stop where the driver or passengers are suspected of being in the country illegally could take a significant chunk of a trooper’s day, especially if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol are not available to assist, Smith said.

Spencer Ross — a state trooper since 1995, sergeant since 2003, and president of the Florida Highway Patrol Fraternal Order of Police, another labor union that represents some in the force — said the state has been thoughtful in how it put the immigration unit together and spread out its responsibilities.

“Looking at the (immigration) model they’ve deployed, I really don’t see that it’s really that taxing throughout the entire state,” he said. Because the agency pulled troopers from around the state rather than its busy metropolitan areas, moving them off the roads has little to “zero impact on the day-to-day operations,” he said.

Ross said he believes there are long-standing, systemic challenges in pay, staffing and retention — problems caused in part by the rapid expansion of roads and more people, not necessarily immigration.

“It’s so multifaceted, like a Rubik’s cube. If one cube is out of line, the whole cube is not solved,” he said. “Everybody wants to point the finger at immigration. Our immigration stuff is not an issue.”

Troopers have always performed immigration enforcement, he said, checking the documents of people they pull over or help with vehicle maintenance issues.

“This is nothing new. The new part is how it’s being scrutinized and how it’s being perceived,” he said.

Smith disagreed.

“Essentially, we’re doing ICE and Border Patrol’s job,” he said.

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