Florida Legislature Passes Bill Approving Program to Relocate Illegal Immigrants
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Florida lawmakers on Friday approved a new immigration program that will allow Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration to relocate illegal immigrants from anywhere in the country to Democratic-led states and sanctuary cities.
The Florida Senate passed the “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program” on Friday, sending the measure to DeSantis for final approval. The legislation sets aside $10 million for Florida’s Department of Emergency Management to spend on the program. A spokesman for the governor said he will review the bill “in its final form and decide on the merits of the bill as presented.”
The bill formally creates the program, which first launched unofficially last year to allow government officials to send migrants to sanctuary cities around the country. The new expansion will allow the Sunshine State to relocate migrants from any state in the country.
That provision comes after Democratic state Senator Jason Pizzo of Miami sued DeSantis for flying 49 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in September. Pizzo argued the relocation violated state law because the illegal immigrants were relocated from Texas, not Florida.
The legislation passed on Friday would “facilitate the transport of inspected unauthorized aliens within the United States.” Unauthorized aliens include individuals who have “documentation from the United States Government indicating that the United States Government processed and released him or her into the United States without admitting the individual in accordance with the federal Immigration and Nationality Act,” according to the bill.
The law’s text criticizes the federal government, which it says has “failed to secure the nation’s border.” It warns that without action from Florida lawmakers, “detrimental effects” could occur, including “increased crime, diminished economic opportunities and wages for American workers, and burdens on the education and health care systems.”
While Democrats have called the efforts by DeSantis and other Republican governors to relocate migrants to blue states inhumane, GOP state Representative John Snyder argued Thursday that the Florida program is “humanitarian” because it offers a “free, chartered flight” for migrants who want to move elsewhere in the country. Snyder sponsored the bill in the Florida House.
Florida House Speaker Paul Renner said the legislation “has never been more necessary” in response to the news that at least 114 Haitian migrants arrived in the Florida Keys on Thursday by water. Another 26 migrants were taken into custody one day earlier after making landfall on Marquesas Keys.
“The Biden administration has failed to secure our borders,” Renner said in a tweet. “Florida will not wait on Washington. We stand with @GovRonDeSantis to protect our state and take on the siege of illegal immigration.”
DeSantis said last week that the relocation program has had a “deterrent effect” on migrants considering going to the Sunshine State.
“People are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country,” he said. “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.’”
