Gray Rohrer
Gov. Ron DeSantis is sending more than 1,000 personnel from Florida, including 800 Florida National Guard members, to the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas.
The move is needed to help Texas deal with an influx of immigrants, which he claimed were caused by President Joe Biden’s lax border policies.
“The impacts of Biden’s Border Crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government’s abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law,” DeSantis said in a released statement.
“At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes. While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter to 49 other Governors Tuesday asking for assistance in dealing with the surge of migrants at his border after the end of Title 42, a COVID-19-era regulation allowing the federal government to immediately expel migrants. But the COVID-19 pandemic emergency regulations ended earlier this month.
Biden administration officials have said the initial influx after the end of Title 42 has subsided, but Abbott and other immigration hard-liners have said the crisis is sapping resources.
“With the end of Title 42 expulsions, President Biden’s own administration estimates that at least 150,000 migrants are waiting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and enter our country illegally,” Abbott wrote in the letter.
“The flood of illegal border activity invited by the Biden Administration flows directly across the southern border into Texas communities, but this crisis does not stop in our state. Emboldened Mexican drug cartels and other transnational criminal enterprises profit off this chaos, smuggling people and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into communities nationwide.”
In addition to the National Guard members, DeSantis is sending 101 Florida Highway Patrol troopers, 200 Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, 20 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, 20 emergency management personnel, five aircraft, two mobile command vehicles, 17 drones and 10 boats.
The cost to Florida isn’t yet known, but DeSantis also sent troops and law enforcement officers in 2021 when Abbott sent a request to Governors for assistance.
7 comments
Dont Say FLA
May 16, 2023 at 4:08 pm
Did Rhonda miss the news that the surge Fox predicted lasted exactly two days, was less than half the number predicted, and immigration is now lower than ever? Maybe Rhonda could bus his national guard to go see a drag show instead.
Mercury Shampoo Ed 👍
May 16, 2023 at 4:19 pm
Expensive political stunt based on border crisis conspiracy theories. Taking people away from their jobs to participate in political stunts is not good for Florida. He must be impeached.
Margaret
May 16, 2023 at 4:48 pm
The irony is that Biden already sent troops down there to handle the expected “surge” and things are going along, quite peacefully and orderly.
This is another performative escapade by a man who will never be President, because he isn’t Presidential.
By the way, has anyone noticed else he is looking more and more like the Mad Comic book personality, Alfred E. Neuman?
Michael K
May 16, 2023 at 5:13 pm
And this expensive stunt benefits Floridians how, exactly?
Elliott Offen
May 16, 2023 at 6:27 pm
GOP can’t start wars anymore because too expensive… now waging war here on minorities and whoever else they can scapegoat for the nations problems. Irony is that it’s them holding back the country from a better future.
Dont Say FLA
May 17, 2023 at 9:03 am
Securing the land border over in Texas helps Floridians because immigrants will arrive by boat, landing directly on Florida’s beaches where there’s not enough orange pickers. The oranges are rotting, falling to the ground, and being eaten by pythons. Rhonda is just trying to cut out the middleman, Texas, while he claims to be helping Florida agriculture by creating a direct-to-Florida immigrant pipeline. The sad fact of the matter is that Rhonda has invested heavily in the barbed wire and wood poles that will be used eventually for securing Florida’s beaches from illegal immigrants. Rhonda, I suspect, must be a plant from Gulf Shores Alabama, sent to destroy Disney and Florida’s beaches
Rob Desantos
May 17, 2023 at 1:43 pm
Mind your own state’s business, you short fat autocrat.
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