HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Jonathan Osbun, a retired New York City firefighter, helped to organize a protest in southern Miami-Dade County against mass deportations.
Osbun marched with about a dozen others on Friday in Homestead, one of a few areas in the U.S. with a winter production of fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants.
Migrant and seasonal farm workers and their families annually travel and work there. Osbun said they are afraid of federal and local law enforcement.
“The issue here with domestic violence, I hear a lot that the families don’t want to press charges because they’re afraid of deportation,” Osbun said.
The signs protesters were carrying were both in English and Spanish. The messages included, “Don’t Bite The Hand That Feeds You,” “Hate Never Made America Great,” and “MAGA: Mexicans Ain’t Going Anywhere.”
Nicole Lozoya, who was among the protesters outside City Hall, said the new immigration policies had families in fear of suddenly being separated.
“It’s so crazy how you can go one day from being together to then not at all,” Lozoya said.
Estayzi Zabaleta and Josefa Bocanegra, who were both protesting, said many who are undocumented or who will no longer have Temporary Protected Status were too afraid to join the protest.
“They don’t deserve to be treated like that, like a piece of trash,” Bocanegra said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that he directed Florida Highway Patrol troopers to help enforce President Donald Trump’s mass deportations under a new agreement with Homeland Security that includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement training.
According to The Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, federal prisons were “housing detainees” for DHS.
Trump also recently announced that the U.S. military will help keep DHS detainees in a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.
The Trump administration was also considering the possibility of a deal with El Salvador to house detainees in the foreign prison.