A.G. Gancarski
Gov. Ron DeSantis has condemned a Jacksonville slaying and urged legislative action to stop the “reckless and wrong” policies that allowed the man suspected in the killing into the country.
“He should have never been in this country, to begin with. And definitely should not have been dumped in the state of Florida,” DeSantis thundered in Jacksonville Thursday.
A 24-year old Honduran immigrant, Yery Noel Medina Ulloa, was arrested Oct. 13 in the death of 46-year-old Francisco Javier Cuellar, according to First Coast News. He intially told authorities he was a minor. The New York Post reported that Medina Ulloa posed as an unaccompanied minor when he crossed the Texas border illegally months earlier.
While it is unclear if Ulloa got into the country via one of the Joe Biden administration policies that moved undocumented minors in recent weeks, the Governor is taking no chances, connecting the practice with the Jacksonville killing.
“What the Biden administration is doing, they’re flying in people who came illegally, dumping a lot in Jacksonville in the middle of the night. And there was an individual who had posed as a 17-year-old, actually was in the mid-twenties, brought here, had been here, ended up committing a murder,” DeSantis said.
“These are middle-of-the-night flights. No notification to the state or anybody. This is not the way you keep people safe,” DeSantis said. “It’s reckless, and it’s wrong.”
The Governor vowed action.
“I’m going to ask the Legislature to see what can we do to make sure they can’t just do this with impunity,” DeSantis said, noting “private contractors” are doing the work.
He may issue an executive order also.
“I’m going to see what we can do from executive,” DeSantis said, noting his administration is challenging so-called “catch and release” policies in court.
He has previously contended that 70% of undocumented immigrants apprehended at the southern border are headed to Florida.
DeSantis’ comments jibe with what he told the Post in a statement.
“This horrific crime is the latest example of how unfettered illegal migration costs Floridians’ lives,” he said.
DeSantis has taken executive action previously against what he calls the “Biden border crisis.”
His Executive Order 21-223 bans “all Florida agencies under the purview of the Governor from facilitating illegal immigration into Florida, unless otherwise required by federal or state law, and require the collection of information from state officials on the scope and costs of illegal immigration in Florida.”
DeSantis sent a letter to Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on Aug. 26. That missive posed questions about resettlement, and thus far, it has gone unanswered.
