Oct. 12, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ETA 58-year-old Florida man was seized from his driveway by ICE and other authorities as part of a nationwide immigration crackdown.The man, who arrived in the U.S. from Cuba during the Freedom Flights as a child, was taken to a detention facility.Immigration enforcement has intensified under the Trump administration, leading to thousands of detentions across the country.Sheena Allende-Smith has been waiting on calls continually for the last two weeks. Calls from attorneys, calls from anyone — family or friends — offering support as she struggles through the aftermath of an ICE raid.But most of all, at any minute, any hour, the call Allende-Smith most craves is one from her 58-year-old father, Jose Manuel Allende, owner of the Palm Bay-based M.A.K. Home Improvements business. Targeted in a raid by ICE agents last month and picked up at his Palm Bay home, he has been shipped from facility to facility in south Florida — including the state's newly built immigration detention center, Alligator Alcatraz.The four-day September sweep in Brevard that led to Allende's detention took 150 immigrants into custody.The controversial, sometimes aggressive, seizures of immigrants at construction sites, apartment complexes, courts and in the streets, along with distress caused to families left behind, continue to draw protests and outcry around the nation and world. In September, Roman Catholic Pope Leo, a Chicago native with a heritage tied to immigrants, weighed in with strong words on the issue.“Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion’ but says, ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life,” the pope said in a statement on the Catholic news services EWTN News.“Someone who says that, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the U.S.’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — who oversees ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol — said in September that in addition to those placed in detention facilities like Allende, another 1.6 million undocumented immigrants were deported out of the country over the last 200 days, although that figure has not been independently verified.“This is massive. This means safer streets, taxpayer savings, pressure off of schools and hospital services and better job opportunities for Americans,” Noem said.“Thank you, President Trump.”An American dream, deferred"This is something different. I've never seen it like this," said Orlando-based immigration attorney David Stoller. "It's like the Wild West in an environment where people haven't seen this kind of enforcement since the (Sept. 11th terrorist attacks). I've never seen this level of (agents) doing whatever they want, wearing masks. They know that the president is going to back them up."Allende, his daughter said, had been in the country since he was 2 years old, part of the legendary Freedom Flights which brought thousands of Cubans escaping tyranny to the U.S. in the 1960s to early 1970s. Many settled in south Florida, where 1.2 million Cubans intersect with business, politics and culture.“The government flew him in. But he’s a business owner, he pays his taxes and he has a family,” said Allende-Smith. She adds that her father is not a citizen but that his parents tried to get him citizenship when he was younger. Allende tried again as an adult, his daughter said, but lost a good deal of his paperwork during Hurricane Andrew’s passage through south Florida in August 1992. He does have a driver’s license and Social Security card.A former Miami resident, the father of four daughters moved to Palm Bay seven years ago. "Really, this is all he knows,” Allende-Smith said.Cuban immigrants typically enjoyed a protected status in the United States because of the island’s ties to then-Communist Russia. A lack of diplomatic relations between the two nations also impeded the return of citizens marked for deportation, Stoller said. But Allende had legal blemishes on his record going back to 1999 that landed him in court in 2014 under an order of supervision with annual appearances before a judge, his daughter said.Then on Sept. 26, she received a frantic call from her father. He had just dropped off his 14-year-old daughter at school. As he arrived back home, several officers — including ICE agents — approached him in his vehicle.“He just put his cup in the cupholder. They told him to get the (expletive) off the phone," she said.“He said ‘Mama, ICE is here, they’re taking me,” she recalled, heartbroken that she did not have a chance to see her father one last time and hurt knowing that she was the one who had to tell other family members about his detention.Allende was transported by bus to a Fort Lauderdale processing facility before being assigned to Alligator Alcatraz. Allende-Smith said her father called to tell her that he was at the 5,000-bed facility in a cage with 12 other men. It was a devastating, discouraging change for a man who loved the freedom of working to improve homes across the Space Coast, she said.“He said there’s no clock, no television. They even took his dentures and threw them away,” she said of the conditions at Alligator Alcatraz before the move.“I know he’s asked for a Bible but they gave him a book about prison,” she said. “He asked to see a doctor and he asked to up his prescription for his stomach problems. He’s lost weight. If he didn't get grits for breakfast, he wouldn't know what time it was."Life on holdThis past week, Allende-Smith could not reach her father for 35 hours, raising concern. Then she learned from the wife of another detainee that he was moved to the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.The detention center sits within walking distance of the proposed Trump Presidential Library near the city's landmark Freedom Tower. Allende-Smith said she was told that her father ended up at the facility after another bus headed to the Krome Detention Center for immigrants broke down, prompting the switch."He's in good spirits but I think he's doing it for us," she said.The one glimmer of light is the help, compassion and encouragement she's gotten from others as her father's story has been shared, even back in Cuba.Stoller said the ICE raids likely will get worse before they get better."Now (ICE) seems desperate to find people and put them on a plane,” he said. “They just want to do the job."J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. Or X, formerly known as Twitter: @JDGallop