Gov. Ron DeSantis announces the Florida State Guard will be deployed to the U,S, border with Mexico during an appearance in Jacksonville on Feb. 1, 2024. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on February 1, 2024 at 3:54 pm
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In an appearance in Jacksonville, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that the state will send members of the Florida State Guard to Texas in a quest to quell illegal immigration.
The governor and former presidential candidate stood inside a hangar at Cecil Airport to decry what he called President Joe Biden’s dereliction of duty at the U.S. border with Mexico. He announced that the Florida Highway Patrol and Florida National Guard will also send additional resources to the border.
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“They’re saying ‘Oh, you can shut down the border down only if you get more than 5,000 illegal aliens a day,” DeSantis said. “Well, that’s 1.8 million a year that you’re just saying is fine. That that’s an acceptable amount of illegal entries. To me, the only amount of acceptable amount of illegal entries is zero. And, that’s what our policy should reflect.”
After being dormant for more than 70 years, the Florida State Guard was recreated to protect Floridians from illegal immigration and civil unrest. Its director, Mark Thieme, asserts that a surge in immigration in Texas has ramifications in Florida.
“The dangers of the border crisis do not stop at state lines and are far too great for any one state to ignore or overcome,” Thieme said.
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Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, quickly called the move a “stunt” and questioned DeSantis’ focus as he’s coming “off of a failed presidential run,” according to the News Service of Florida.
“I feel like he’s running for something,” Driskell said. “I’m not sure what it is. But he certainly wants to make sure that he stays in the national spotlight.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection data indicates encounters with migrants at the southern border increased by 42% between 2021 and 2023 to 2.4 million interactions.
In the first three months of this fiscal year, interactions have been 9% percent higher than 2023.
Between 2021 and 2023, more than 60% of the migrants that Customs and Border Protection officials met were single adults. Thus far this year, the migrants who have been stopped are still primarily adults, but the percentage of families has increased sharply from 33.8% of encounters in 2023 to 43% in the first three months of this fiscal year.
“I think this is an American issue, I don’t think its one state’s issue,” DeSantis said. “I think we have to do the right thing here. … If we’re able to help Texas fortify this, then I think there will be a lot of hope for a lot of people.
The governor did not have a timetable for when the officers would travel by bus to South Texas.
