(CNN) — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Friday that he intends to use “every penny” of the $12 million his state budgeted to relocate immigrants, and the possibility of buses and “probably more” flights was made clear. full of immigrants paid by the state.
“These are just initial efforts,” the Republican governor said. “We have an infrastructure in place now. There’s going to be a lot more going on.”
At a news conference in Daytona Beach, DeSantis defended using taxpayer money to send 50 immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard because he said many people who cross the border end up in Florida. In this regard, he explained that people who work for Florida are in Texas and “profile” individuals who are likely to go to Florida.
Florida, he added, has secured its own contractor to coordinate the state’s relocation efforts to Texas, though DeSantis did not close the door on working with Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to arrange future moves.
“We might collaborate,” DeSantis said.
If I might, DeSantis said, “I would send them back to Mexico or their country of origin.” Most — if not all — of the immigrants on the two flights said they were from Venezuela.
DeSantis also disputed the claim that the immigrants did not know where they were going in Massachusetts because, according to him, they had signed a waiver and were provided with a package that included a map of Martha’s Vineyard.
“Obviously that’s where they were going,” he said, adding: “It’s all voluntary.”
DeSantis explains Florida’s plan to identify and transport immigrants
Migrants gather with their belongings in front of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Martha’s Vineyard on Sept. 14, 2022.
The state budget DeSantis signed this year allocated $12 million to transport “unauthorized aliens” but specified that the intent was to transport people “from this state.” Asked regarding that provision, DeSantis dismissed it as a semantic issue because many immigrants end up in Florida but don’t move there in groups large enough to intercept them.
“So we’ve been intercepting people on a one-two basis,” DeSantis said. “And we said, ok, we’ve had people in Texas for months trying to figure out how these people are getting to Florida. What’s the movement? And the reality is that 40% of them say they want to go to Florida. And that’s I mean, we talk regarding all these people, but the problem is that they’re getting like three people in a car and they go through, it’s hard for us to know, because they’re entering the state like any other car so there’s not a big move.”
“So they’ve been in Texas, identifying people who are trying to get to Florida and then offering them free transportation to sanctuary jurisdictions. And so they went from Texas to Florida to Martha’s Vineyard on the flight.”
In response to Thursday’s criticism of the President Joe BidenDeSantis said, “We continue to … use every tool at our disposal to insulate the state of Florida from the negative ramifications of its reckless border policies.”
“He didn’t rush to get his cabinet together when we had millions of people crossing the southern border illegally,” DeSantis said.