Gov. DeSantis’ ‘law and order’ budget puts illegal immigration over prisons

South Florida inmates will soon get COVID-19 vaccines. Image via WUSF.

If budgets are a statement of priorities, Gov. Ron DeSantis in his seventh proposed budget makes clear where his lie. His budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year slots a lot of money to thwart and address illegal immigration, while allocating a relatively modest sum for state’s the criminal justice system.

Within proposed public safety spending, the “Focus on Fiscal Responsibility” budget includes more than half a billion dollars for the fight against illegal immigration.

“DeSantis recommends $505 million and 15 FTE (full-time employees) in the current year for the Division of Emergency Management and $4.4 million and 21 FTE to establish a Special Immigration Unit at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to immediately assist the federal administration’s enforcement of illegal immigration,” the memo reads.

The battle between DeSantis and the Legislature is ongoing over the Legislature-approved TRUMP Act that puts immigration enforcement powers in the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. DeSantis’ budget proposal floated Sunday night puts a price tag on a key component of the Governor’s immigration reform wishlist ahead of an impending veto of the legislative product, which has yet to be transmitted to DeSantis.

The Governor has been outspoken in his desire to focus state resources on the federal battle against illegal immigration. He pitched Florida as a logical launching pad for the removal of undocumented immigrants last week, saying he wanted Florida to “get in the game” of sending those in the country illegally to Guantanamo Bay.

DeSantis also said “deputized” state forces who can “make the same decisions” as Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol could also “take them back to Haiti or the Bahamas or wherever they are coming from, right on the spot” if they “intercept them on the sea.”

Resources for this proposed expansion of enforcement prerogative, under DeSantis’ proposed budget, come at the expense of more quotidian needs, though, including the Department of Corrections and the state prison system.

Roughly $13 million is considered to help with communications and security, including “$3 million for security equipment, such as drone detection equipment, thermal fence cameras, drone support for K–9 operations, and license plate readers;” $8 million to “improve infrastructure;” and more than $2 million for radio tower replacement and satellite phones for probation officers.

Concerns have been raised about the prison system’s “unsustainable” path, where facilities built before 1980 and without central heat and air conditioning predominate. But despite years of budget surpluses, moves to improve inmates’ and staff prison experiences have been half measures at best. DeSantis has vetoed money for recommended new facilities in recent years.

It remains to be seen how the illegal immigration focus as contemplated in the budget is received by the legislative branch.

House Speaker Daniel Perez describes DeSantis as a would-be “deporter-in-chief” who is more interested in winning news cycles than in winning the fight against illegal immigration.

“The results on immigration have been more of a headline than a reality,” the Speaker told an interviewer recently. “We’ve spent tens of millions of dollars, and other than the immigrants or migrants that were flown to Martha’s Vineyard since then, there hasn’t been any alien transport going on.”