On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) announced that he would be deploying state resources, including state law enforcement and the National Guard, to the southern border in Texas amid the ongoing mass illegal immigration crisis.
As reported by Fox News, DeSantis said that his state is “ready to help” Texas in dealing with the flood of illegal aliens, which comes after the Biden Administration officially ended the Trump-era policy of Title 42.
“At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes,” DeSantis announced. “While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis.”
The deployment will feature over 1,100 assets and resources overall, including 10 vessels, 17 unmanned drones, 101 Highway Patrol personnel, 200 officers from the Department of Law Enforcement, and 800 National Guard members. The effort will be authorized under the terms of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which says that states are allowed to provide assistance to others in times of emergency or crisis.
“We welcome the support from the state of Florida as they will provide additional law enforcement resources to help combat criminal activity & interdict deadly narcotics,” said Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Since the official end of Title 42 – a widely successful policy that reduced legal and illegal immigration on the basis of protecting public health during the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic – there has been a surge of illegals flooding the border, now aware that they will most likely not be deported even if they are apprehended by authorities. Driven by Biden’s promises on the campaign trail of free, taxpayer-funded benefits for all illegals, the U.S. has seen record highs in the sheer amount of illegals crossing the border since Biden took power.
As Florida is not a border state itself, DeSantis has leaned on other tactics and stunts to focus on the issue of immigration, including sending groups of illegal aliens by bus to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal community in Massachusetts, ostensibly to put the Democrats’ open-borders policies right back into their territory.
The move comes as DeSantis is expected by some to announce his campaign for the presidency in 2024, which would set up a showdown between the Florida Governor and former President Donald Trump, the current frontrunner for the GOP nomination.