Florida Highway Patrol is asking vendors to weigh in on building temporary adult-detention facilities across the state, according to a procurement notice posted this week that gives companies until Monday to respond. The request, filed by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Monday, does not say whether the facilities would house immigration detainees or some other population, but it lands just weeks after the state shuttered its controversial Everglades detention camp.
The notice, officially designated FLHSMV-RFI-027-27, was posted to Florida's MyFloridaMarketPlace Vendor Information Portal, with vendor questions due to the agency's Bureau of Purchasing and Contracts by Aug. 10, according to the Miami Herald. The document defines a qualifying facility as one similar to a detention center, where a contractor provides secure residential support services under U.S. government oversight, per the same account. The Herald reports that it contacted FLHSMV, Gov. Ron DeSantis's office, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment; DHS and ICE had not responded by publication, and the governor's office referred questions back to Florida Highway Patrol.
What the Request Actually Asks For
Per the Herald's reporting, the facilities described in the RFI would need to provide housing 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year-round. FLHSMV is asking vendors to propose potential sites, preferably five or more locations south of Interstate 4 — the highway that runs from Daytona Beach to Tampa through Central Florida — and contractors are encouraged to build on state-owned land. Vendors are also asked to advise on how any federally funded facilities could comply with future restrictions on site use.
The smaller, short-term facilities described in the request would hold roughly 50 detainees for stays of 48 hours or more, could house either men or women, and would need to include office space for state and federal personnel, the Herald's report states. The request follows the recent closure of the Everglades immigration detention facility, which Gov. DeSantis had invested more than $1 billion to build and which was nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz.” That site held federal immigration detainees inside an industrial white tent, and detainees reported poor conditions and abuse there, though state and federal officials denied those reports, according to the same Herald account.
A Pattern Built on 287(g) Agreements
Florida agencies have signed a wave of agreements to assist federal immigration agents under the 287(g) program, and Florida Highway Patrol has been a major driver of immigration arrests under those deals. The Florida Highway Patrol became the first state law enforcement agency in the nation to sign onto ICE's revived 287(g) Task Force Model in early 2025, according to court filings reported by the Miami Herald and CourtListener, giving troopers direct authority to interrogate and arrest suspected noncitizens during highway patrols. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said Florida now leads the nation with 327 active 287(g) agreements as of September 2025, a 577% jump in participating agencies since January of that year.
Citing data from the state Board of Immigration Enforcement, the Herald reports that Florida Highway Patrol has documented more than 9,600 immigration encounters since Aug. 1, 2025 — roughly three times the number logged by the Lee County Sheriff's Office, the next-highest recording agency. That enforcement muscle has already produced large-scale operations: DHS says a weeklong joint push by ICE, Florida Highway Patrol and local sheriffs in Central Florida in September 2025 led to more than 400 arrests of noncitizens with active warrants or final removal orders, and Hoodline has reported on a 309-arrest Palm Beach sweep tied to the same 287(g) framework.
A Lawmaker's Warning, and a Legal Backdrop
State Rep. Anna Eskamani called the new request “incredibly concerning” and said it looks like a plan for immigration detention facilities, according to the Herald's reporting. She said Florida wants to open more detention facilities and pointed to the pending cancellation of Temporary Protected Status, which the Herald notes could affect as many as 350,000 Haitian immigrants.
The RFI arrives against a legal backdrop that has already tested the state's detention ambitions. Florida Senate Bill 1718, signed by DeSantis in May 2023, established mandatory E-Verify rules for larger employers, invalidated out-of-state driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants and required hospitals to ask patients about citizenship status, per the Florida Senate. A federal judge blocked a separate section of that law in May 2024 that would have made transporting undocumented immigrants into the state a felony, with civil rights groups successfully arguing federal law preempts state control over interstate transport, according to Americans for Immigrant Justice.
Fallout From the Everglades Facility Still Lingers
The Everglades camp's closure did not end scrutiny of Florida's detention practices. In March, U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell issued a preliminary injunction requiring ICE and state emergency managers to give detainees at the Everglades site unmonitored legal phone calls and to keep at least one working telephone for every 25 people held, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Federal court filings in April alleged that guards there had assaulted and pepper-sprayed detainees after a disruption in phone service, leaving one detainee with a broken wrist, though government attorneys told the court the facility was moving into compliance with the judicial order, as Hoodline reported at the time.
Florida's detention footprint has also shrunk in other ways this year. DHS withdrew plans in May for a proposed state-backed lockup in Panama City that DeSantis had dubbed the “Panhandle Pokey,” a project Hoodline covered as it collapsed under legal and financial pressure. FLHSMV has been led since January 2023 by Executive Director Dave Kerner, a former Democratic Palm Beach County mayor appointed by the Republican governor, and it is Kerner's agency now fielding vendor proposals for the state's next generation of detention sites. Whether those sites end up housing immigration detainees, as Rep. Eskamani suspects, or another population remains unanswered in the request itself, and neither DHS nor ICE had clarified the matter by the Herald's publication.
