Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed legislation that would grant his administration the power to continue transporting illegal aliens to other states.
"Florida is using all tools available to protect our citizens from Biden's open border policies," DeSantis declared in a Twitter post. “I am glad to have signed legislation to continue the program of transporting illegal aliens to sanctuary jurisdictions. I thank the legislature for maintaining this valuable tool.”
The bill in question, Senate Bill 6-B: Transportation of Inspected Unauthorized Aliens, will allow the Florida government to spend up to $10 million to transport illegal aliens to other states nationwide. SB 6-B was initially introduced by State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia (R-FL), who has been vocal about defending the state from the current surge of illegal immigration that the United States has had to put up with since Joe Biden assumed the presidency in 2021.
The State Senate initially passed this legislation by a 27-12 vote on February 8. After the bill was passed in the Florida House by a 77-34 vote on February 10, 2023, Ingoglia stressed the importance of this bill’s passage:
The federal government has not only failed but refused to take any action to deal with the over 200% increase in encounters at the border. In fact, this administration has taken steps to make the problem worse. The state of Florida is not, and never will be, a sanctuary state. It’s time for those sanctuary cities to put their money where their mouth is.
"People are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country," DeSantis proclaimed during a recent news conference. “We can just sit here and do nothing about it, or we can actually stand up and say, 'Whatever tools we have at our disposal, we are going to be using.'”
In 2022, DeSantis caused a stir when he sent two planes of illegal aliens to the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis did so to bring attention to the crisis taking place at the US’s southern border with Mexico. In response to the migrants that DeSantis sent to Martha’s Vineyard, island leadership declared a “humanitarian crisis” and Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) stepped in to bus the illegal aliens out of the island and shelter them in Joint Base Cape Cod.
Florida subsequently followed the footsteps of Arizona and Texas by transporting illegal aliens to Democratic-run cities and states such as Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. This has been part of a red state strategy to bring the border crisis to the fore of political discussion.
Throughout DeSantis’s administration, the Florida governor has made strong immigration enforcement a policy priority. In 2019, he signed legislation that prohibited local governments from setting up “sanctuary” policies and compelled local law enforcement to work with federal immigration enforcers to deport illegal aliens. The following year DeSantis signed E-Verify into law, which made it mandatory for private and public sector employers to use this system to verify job applicant’s work eligibility.
In light of a surging migration wave from Cuba and other Caribbean nations that was arriving at the Florida Keys, DeSantis issued an executive order on January 6, 2023 to activate the Florida Guard to tackle this migrant surge.
