'Operation Tidal Wave' Nets 800 Fla. Illegals: '1st of Its Kind'

"Operation Tidal Wave," four days of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids working with Florida's local law enforcement in a "first of its kind" arrangement, has netted nearly 800 illegals for arrest.

"I think the main reason why this operation is significant is because it's the first of its kind," acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told ABC News. "It's one that not only we've been doing what we have, but we have surged all our federal partners together along with Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement [and] Removal Operations, which are all the enforcement arms of ICE, but we're also using all our 287 (g) partners in the state of Florida.

"We're using state, local, and county law enforcement agencies to assist us in our operations."

Under ICE's 287(g) authority, handshaking enforcement efforts between federal immigration law and locals in the red state of Florida is showing America and Democrat-run states and sanctuary cities the way of a "'whole of government' approach," according to Lyons.

"So this is one of the first large-scale missions we've done like this ever," Lyons said. "We brought a 'whole government' approach with cooperative jurisdictions that want to help ICE secure communities in neighborhoods and remove public safety threats from our neighborhoods."

ICE's 287 (g) deputizes state and local officials to arrest illegals and nearly 230 Florida law enforcement agencies have signed 287 (g) agreements, according to the report.

"State troopers, local police officers, county sheriffs — they're our eyes and ears," Martin continued. "They encountered these criminal aliens out and about during their regular duties, and they're able to go ahead and identify those public safety threats for us."

Among the illegals netted: a convicted Colombian murderer, alleged foreign gang members, including MS-13, and Russian national Savva Klishchevskii, who reportedly has an Interpol Red Notice for vehicular manslaughter.