Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has proposed a plan to transport “unauthorized aliens” out of Florida.
DeSantis’ $99.7 billion “Freedom First Budget” includes $8 million that would enable the state to partner with private companies willing to remove illegal immigrants from Florida.
The Miami Herald reported:
The proposed program, which the governor wants to pay for with interest accrued from federal funds, and a “series” of incoming legislative bills that he says will fight “back against the Biden border crisis” are the latest battle lines drawn by a governor who appears to be drumming up a potential challenge against President Joe Biden in 2024…
Few details have emerged on exactly how the proposed immigration program would work or how the state would plan to track undocumented immigrants and transport them out of the state. The Florida Legislature would need to approve the funding and the details before such a program can be in operation. The governor’s office has not responded to requests seeking comment on specifics.
“One of the priorities that we’ve been working on for many months now and we’ll continue to work with the Legislature when they get back is dealing with the fallout from the reckless border policies of the Biden administration,” DeSantis said at a news conference on Friday.
The Miami Herald added that DeSantis’ office has been monitoring the federal government’s “clandestine” flights, through which the Biden administration has been sending illegal immigrants into Florida. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has identified 78 such flights that have landed in Jacksonville between April 2021 and October 2021.
In August, DeSantis admonished the Biden administration to end its “reckless immigration policies” — especially those that worsen the immigration crisis for his constituents.
“While Floridians are working to ensure that criminal aliens are not released back into our communities, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appears to be hard at work resettling ever-larger numbers of illegal aliens who have no lawful status under federal immigration law from the southwest border to Florida,” the governor wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “I ask that DHS immediately cease any further resettlement of illegal aliens in Florida and that the aliens instead be removed from the United States or resettled in states that support the administration’s continued flouting of our immigration laws.”
“Floridians welcome responsible immigration that serves the interests of Florida and the American people, but we cannot abide the lawlessness that your department is aiding and abetting on the southwest border,” he continued.
DeSantis also explained that he has been forced to take immigration enforcement into his own hands.
“I have been to the border and I observed firsthand the chaos that this administration’s policies have created,” DeSantis said. “To fill the void left by the federal government, Florida deployed its own law enforcement officers to the border, and they’ve (been) told that many of the illegal aliens apprehended there plan to end up in Florida.”