Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to send illegal immigrants from his state to Delaware, which is President Joe Biden’s home state.
“What we’re doing in Florida is saying, ‘We’re not gonna let the recklessness of those policies impact our state,'” DeSantis said at a signing event in Florida on Wednesday, referring to federal immigration policies. “If businesses or contractors are dumping people who are illegal into Florida from southern Texas, you know, we’re gonna go after their ability to do business in Florida.”
Alleging that federal officials fly in illegal immigrants from the U.S.–Mexico border to Florida at “two in the morning,” DeSantis said that Florida now has “money where we can reroute them to sanctuary states like Delaware—and we’re gonna do that—to make sure we’re keeping people safe here.”
Biden currently has a home in Delaware, and he was a Senator from the state for decades.
DeSantis made similar comments last year, but he appeared to renew his call after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would send buses with illegal aliens to Washington D.C.
“To help local officials–because communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden Administration–Texas is providing charter buses for these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off to Washington, D.C.,” Abbott said in public remarks on Wednesday.
Abbott signed an order that authorized the Texas Division of Emergency Management to head the operation. It’s not clear when those charter buses will leave and how many are on board.
Those comments, meanwhile, came after the Biden administration announced it would end the Title 42 immigration order that prevented a significant number of illegal immigrants from entering the United States since it was implemented in early 2020 under the Trump administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDD) said last week that the COVID-19-related policy will expire on May 23.
Some current and former federal law enforcement officials said that rescinding the policy will encourage more people to try and enter the United States from Mexico in the coming months.
“We are sending them to the United States capital where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border,” Abbott also said, which drew criticism from activist groups.
This week, Gen. Glen Vanherck, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), told a Senate Armed Service Committee that his agency will “provide additional capability or capacity based on the potential for additional immigration, or folks coming to the southwest border.”
Pentagon Secretary Lloyd Austin approved support to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees federal immigration efforts, in anticipation of a surge of “irregular migration along the southwest border,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also said in a statement to news outlets.
