ICE detains man outside Lee Health facility in Fort Myers

Immigration agents detained a man outside a Lee Health facility in Fort Myers on Wednesday afternoon, and residents reported seeing agents at several other places across Lee County through the day

Money & World

The Editorial Team · August 26, 2026

A five storey cream stucco apartment building with balconies, seen from across a road in flat midday sunshine under a clear blue sky, with young palms and shade trees along the pavement and a single dark pickup truck parked at the kerb. No people are in the frame and no street name, address number or number plate is legible. A generic illustration of a Florida residential community, not a photograph of this event.

Stock photo

Stock photo. Not the actual scene. Photo: Dewnette Reid / Pexels

What it changes

This follows on from the item this desk published earlier on Wednesday evening about immigration enforcement in Southwest Florida, and it adds the afternoon. That earlier item rested on Gulf Coast News reporting from a morning raid at Madison Avenue and Alderman Street in Fort Myers, and it could not use WINK News at the time because winknews.com refused three requests. That article has since been read, and it puts the activity in places the earlier item did not name. For a Lee County resident the practical position on Wednesday evening is this. WINK News reports its crew recorded agents detaining a man outside a Lee Health facility in the afternoon, with patients and employees watching, and separately reports neighbours watching agents inside the Palms of Monterrey community just after one o'clock. The outlet says viewers and neighbours also reported agents at Jamaica Bay Village near State Road 41 and Six Mile Cypress Parkway, in the area around Burnt Store Road, and on Interstate 75 in Estero. Those last three are reports from residents and viewers passed to a newsroom rather than confirmed scenes, and they should be read that way. What is still not established has not changed since this morning. No agency has published a release about a Southwest Florida operation, no total number of people detained has been given, and no list of locations has been issued, so a report of activity in one neighbourhood says nothing about any other. WINK News says it is still working to learn whether anyone was arrested at Palms of Monterrey. Anyone detained by immigration agents is accused of a civil immigration violation unless a criminal charge is filed and stated by the authority filing it, and nothing here establishes what any individual did. A protest under the name ICE Out Now was scheduled for six o'clock on Wednesday evening in downtown Fort Myers near the Luminary Hotel. This desk has not verified whether it went ahead and is recording only that it was scheduled.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained a man outside a Lee Health facility in Fort Myers on Wednesday afternoon, WINK News reports.

The station says its crew recorded the detention, and that patients and employees watched as agents surrounded trucks and placed a man in handcuffs. He is not named in the report. This desk published an earlier item on Wednesday evening covering a raid at Madison Avenue and Alderman Street in Fort Myers that morning, reported by Gulf Coast News. What follows is the afternoon.

Where residents reported seeing agents

WINK News reports that neighbours watched agents circle inside the Palms of Monterrey community just after one o'clock on Wednesday. Its chief investigative reporter, Chorus Nylander, was there, and says an agent he approached confirmed he was with ICE.

The station also reports that neighbours and viewers described seeing agents at several other places across Lee County: Jamaica Bay Village near State Road 41 and Six Mile Cypress Parkway, the area around Burnt Store Road, and Interstate 75 in Estero.

Those are accounts from residents and viewers passed to a newsroom. They are not confirmed scenes, and no agency has published a list of locations.

What is still not known

No agency has released a total number of people detained in Southwest Florida on Wednesday, and none has published a release about the operation at all.

WINK News says it is still working to establish whether anyone was arrested at Palms of Monterrey.

Anyone detained by immigration agents is accused of a civil immigration violation unless a criminal charge is filed and stated by the authority filing it. Nothing in this item establishes what any individual did.

A protest under the name ICE Out Now was scheduled for six o'clock on Wednesday evening in downtown Fort Myers, near the Luminary Hotel. This desk has not confirmed whether it went ahead.

Where we read it: Chorus Nylander at WINK News. Read their story.

The document: No public filing has been released.

Immigration agents detained a man outside a Lee Health facility in Fort Myers on Wednesday afternoon, and residents reported seeing agents at several other places across Lee County through the day

Where residents reported seeing agents

What is still not known

The Florida Highway Patrol logged its call on Cemetery Road at Dana Road outside Fort Myers clear at 7.34 p.m., about forty five minutes after a crash it had reclassified as a fatality closed the road in every lane

The Florida Highway Patrol has stamped its crash involving one of its own patrol cars on Interstate 75 northbound at mile marker 131 in Fort Myers cleared at 6.55 p.m., forty seven minutes after it was logged, and the roadblock column never moved off unknown

Immigration agents carried out raids across Southwest Florida neighbourhoods on Wednesday, including one at Madison Avenue in Fort Myers before eight in the morning, and the agency has not said how many people it took into custody

Lee County cut the ribbon this morning on the rebuilt splash pads at Lakes Regional Park in Fort Myers, a 2.6 million dollar replacement paid for with state disaster money after Hurricane Ian ruined the originals almost four years ago