Florida lawmakers vote to expand DeSantis plan to resettle migrants

(CNN) — Florida lawmakers on Friday approved an expansion of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial migrant relocation program, giving the Republican leader the authority to move people from anywhere in the country.

The measure, which is now on DeSantis’ desk after the GOP-led House of Representatives passed 77 to 34, would allow his administration to pick up where the governor left off last year when he dispatched two planeloads of migrants. from San Antonio, Texas. in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. This attention-grabbing act propelled DeSantis to the center of the nationwide debate on immigration, earning potentially encouraging praise from conservatives in 2024 and widespread condemnation from migrant advocacy groups and the White House.

The program has stalled due to multiple legal issues and questions about whether the DeSantis administration violated state law by detaining migrants in Texas. The budget bill that created the $12 million program indicated that the money was set aside to relocate “unauthorized aliens from this state.”

At DeSantis’ urging, lawmakers convened in a special session this week voted to lift the restriction on where the state can pick up migrants. The program will also be administered by the Florida Department of Emergency Management. Since DeSantis has declared a state of emergency related to immigration, it would allow the administration to win millions of dollars worth of contracts without bidding with companies to move migrants around the country with little public disclosure.

The legislation comes as Florida has experienced a surge in migrants from Cuba and Haiti trying to reach the state’s coastline by boat. However, the sponsor of the bill, GOP state senator Blaise Ingoglia, said giving the DeSantis administration the freedom to conduct missions outside of Florida would help stem the flow of migrants into the state.

“The state of Florida is currently in a state of emergency due to the incompetence and incompetence of the federal government when it comes to immigration policy,” Ingoglia said Tuesday during a hearing on the bill. “In fact, I would argue that someone should declare the federal government itself to be their disaster area.”

The bill was passed by the state House of Representatives on Friday, despite strong objections from Democrats who said the state has no constitutional role to play in the country’s immigration problems. On Wednesday, it was passed by the State Senate by a vote of 27 to 12 along party lines. Republicans have overwhelming majorities in both houses.

“There is no one around this table who honestly believes we have a good immigration policy right now,” State Senator Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat, said at a news conference Monday. “No one at this table is going to say that Joe Biden is doing a great job with immigration. However, this is their mandate.”

In September, people working on behalf of the DeSantis administration in San Antonio convinced 49 migrants — most if not all Venezuelan asylum seekers — to board two flights bound for Martha’s Vineyard. When the migrants arrived in Massachusetts to the dismay of local residents, DeSantis took charge of organizing the mission during an appearance on Fox News.

Since then, public records have shed light on the covert mission, which included hiring a company with close ties to a DeSantis administration official to set up flights and using a woman named Perla to help convince migrants to take the flights.

Migrant lawyers filed a class action lawsuit, saying their clients were tricked into accepting flights and were told they would come to find housing, work and help with the immigration process. In fact, no one at Martha’s Vineyard even knew they were coming, according to local authorities. A migrant who helped Perla told CNN he was tricked into helping her recruit migrants for the trip.

On Wednesday, Ingoglia said migrants should inform the federal government of their whereabouts. He insisted that the state would only transfer people voluntarily and said so-called sanctuary jurisdictions were better equipped to provide resources for migrants than Florida.

In accordance with legislation, $10 million will be reallocated to the State Emergency Management Program for use through June. DeSantis, in its proposed budget, allocated another $12 million to continue the program.

Democrats have suggested that Republicans are retroactively correcting DeSantis’ mistakes during the mission to Martha’s Vineyard and helping him raise his profile so he can run for president in 2024.

“What we’re doing right now is carrying water for the governor knowing that what he did was wrong and you plug your nose to vote for it and say it’s right,” the state senator said. Shevrin Jones. “That’s not true. It doesn’t suit us as a state. It doesn’t suit us as a people and it certainly doesn’t suit our resources and how we’re going to spend taxpayer dollars.”

State Senator Debbie Mayfield, a Republican, balked at the proposal.

“If the federal government were doing their job and guarding our border, we wouldn’t have to deal with this problem in Florida,” she said. “It’s so easy for me.”

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