Immigration agents made arrests and detentions across Lee County on Monday morning, drivers reported repeated stops along Interstate 75, and the agency says it will not discuss the operation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents conducted arrests and detentions across Lee County on Monday morning, and drivers reported repeated law enforcement stops along Interstate 75, Gulf Coast News reports.

The station reports the arrests caused traffic delays along I-75, with drivers describing agents and law enforcement vehicles at multiple locations.

Asked about the operation, ICE said in a statement that every day the Department of Homeland Security is conducting law enforcement activities across the country to keep Americans safe, and that the department does not discuss ongoing or future operations.

The agency released photographs of three men it said were arrested in Fort Myers. Gulf Coast News reports it confirmed all three are currently in ICE custody, and that the agency did not disclose when those arrests occurred. This desk has not seen those photographs and does not name anyone.

The rest of the public account comes from people who witnessed parts of Monday morning, and it is reported here as their accounts rather than as established fact.

A witness at North Shore Park in North Fort Myers, given by the station as Joe, said about four state trooper vehicles were there a little after 10 or 10.30 and that this was unusual for a Monday morning.

A driver given as Robin told the station she saw at least five stops between the Alico Road and Corkscrew Road exits, describing a combination of Florida Highway Patrol pulling over what appeared to be work trucks with ICE vehicles behind them.

Hillary Hogue, of the organisation Mothers Helping Mothers, told the station she witnessed arrests and named several agencies she said were working with ICE, among them Border Patrol, Fort Myers police and the Highway Patrol. None of those agencies has confirmed its own participation, and the station reports its account of the agencies involved from her rather than from any of them.

Nothing here is a finding about any individual. An arrest or a detention is not a determination, no person's immigration status has been established on any record this desk can read, and no one is named in this item.

There is no document behind this one, and that is the agency's own stated position rather than a gap this desk failed to close. ICE has published no release on the operation; its newsroom index carries no Fort Myers or Lee County item. The account reaches the public through the station and is credited that way.

No other outlet is carrying this yet. WINK News was checked directly and its Lee County index has nothing on it. The story was about forty minutes old when this was written, so that silence is treated as the age of the story and nothing more.

The traffic effects described were a Monday morning event. No agency has announced any road closure or lane blockage still in force.