Governor Ron DeSantis said on Friday that he plans to use “every penny” of the $12 million that his state has set aside to move immigrants where he also said that buses and “probably more” flights could be used soon.
“These are only preliminary efforts,” said DeSantis. “We currently have an infrastructure in place. There will be a great deal more occurring.”
At a news conference in Daytona Beach, DeSantis defended the use of taxpayer funds to transport 50 immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, stating that many border crossers end up in Florida.
In this regard, he explained that Florida employees are in Texas “profiling” individuals who are likely to travel to Florida.
Florida has secured its own contractor to coordinate the state’s relocation efforts to Texas, he added, but DeSantis did not rule out future collaboration with Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
“We could work together,” said DeSantis. DeSantis stated, “If I could, I would send them back to Mexico or their home country.” The majority, if not all, of the immigrants on both flights, claimed to be from Venezuela.
DeSantis also refuted the claim that the immigrants did not know where they were going in Massachusetts because, according to him, they signed a waiver and were given a map of Martha’s Vineyard as part of a package.
Clearly, they were going there, he said, adding, “It’s all voluntary.”
DeSantis describes the plan to identify and transport immigrants in Florida.
This year’s state budget signed by Governor DeSantis allotted $12 million for the transportation of “unauthorized aliens,” but the intent was to transport people “from this state.”
When questioned about this provision, DeSantis dismissed it as a semantic issue because many immigrants end up in Florida but do not move there in large enough numbers to be intercepted.
“Therefore, we’ve been intercepting people in pairs,” DeSantis said.
“And we said, “Okay, we’ve had people in Texas trying to figure out how these people are getting to Florida for months.”
What is the motion?
And the reality is that forty percent of them want to visit Florida.
We talk about all these people, but the problem is that they’re squeezing three people into a car and entering the state like any other vehicle, making it difficult for us to tell.”
“Therefore, they have been in Texas, identifying individuals attempting to reach Florida and offering them free transportation to sanctuary jurisdictions. The flight took them from Texas to Florida to Martha’s Vineyard.”
In response to President Joe Biden’s criticism on Thursday, DeSantis stated, “We continue to… use every tool at our disposal to protect Florida from the negative effects of its reckless border policies.”
“He did not rush to assemble his cabinet when millions of illegal immigrants were crossing the southern border,” DeSantis said.
