Case details and custody
Ernesto Puac Son, 33, had lived in Stuart for 18 years and held a Florida driver’s license, a work permit and a pending asylum case, according to TCPalm. He is now in ICE custody after a Martin County court convicted him of resisting arrest and imposed a one-year jail sentence. The available accounts do not establish when the transfer occurred or whether it was connected to the sentence.
What the records and video show
The incident occurred on October 1, 2025, during a traffic stop involving an alleged rolling stop. The available account does not establish that the FDLE agents were conducting immigration enforcement during the stop. Treasure Coast News reported that its review of records and video showed FDLE Special Agent John Soltys breaking a window of Puac Son’s van, removing him through the opening and holding him on the ground. The cited reporting does not establish Soltys’s injuries or confirm an alleged bite.
The enforcement framework
A prior court challenge
Courts have previously intervened in disputes over Florida’s efforts to involve state or local officers in federal immigration enforcement. In a separate South Florida federal case, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a preliminary injunction on April 29, 2025, blocking Florida’s SB 4-C immigration law while the state appealed, according to WGCU News. WGCU also reported that the U.S. Supreme Court denied Florida’s request to stay the injunction while the appeal continued.
The federal government authorized FDLE to act as immigration officers in July 2025, according to WLRN. The available reporting does not show whether that authorization was part of an arrangement in place before the October 2025 stop or whether it applied to the agents involved.
Florida’s 287(g) program had agreements with 272 of the state’s 394 law enforcement agencies as of June 2026, and 163 of those agencies were classified as operational because they had made immigration arrests, according to FDLE data reported by WUSF. Florida law requires local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, while participating agencies must submit monthly information to FDLE under the State Immigration Enforcement Council’s data-collection resolution, available from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
