Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signaled this week on Tucker Carlson Tonight that his office is looking at ways to combat the federal government’s program of bringing illegal aliens into the Sunshine State via plane — including by denying state contacts to the companies that facilitate the flood of border-crossers.
Per the governor’s office, over 70 flights landed in the Jacksonville Airport from the southern border.
The federal government’s actions have stirred controversy, particularly in light of the recently publicized murder of a father of four in Florida who was murdered by an illegal alien flown into Florida under Biden’s policy.
In October, Yery Noel Medina Ulloa was arrested in Jacksonville and charged with murdering Francisco Javier Cuellar. DeSantis’ office called the crime “horrific,” saying that it showed the precariousness of “unfettered illegal migration.”
“If Biden had not been doing that, if he’d been doing his job, that individual would be alive today,” DeSantis said.
The Florida governor told Carlson that the Biden flights arrive at “one or two or three in the morning.” He added that the flights were “unannounced” and he was not given notice and thus has no ability to veto the flights.
“The feds, of course, control the airspace and they’re there on the ground. They take these folks and then they send them in other parts of Florida by bus or other parts of the southeast,” DeSantis said.
Although the federal government has jurisdiction over airspace, DeSantis is committed to fighting the flights.
“We’re looking at what we can do. I think that they use these private contractors. So what we’re looking at is how can we fight back against the contractors? We can obviously deny them state contracts, which we will do. Can we deny them access to Florida’s market generally? Can we tax them? Can we do things to provide disincentives so they can’t do it? So we’re going to do whatever we can to do it,” he added.
“But we are going to go after some of these contractors because they are bringing in people that are causing burdens on us and, as we’ve said, tragically caused someone to lose their life.”
Joe Biden’s stance on immigration has differed drastically from Donald Trump’s. The COVID-19 outbreak is now being used as grounds for carrying out attrition of U.S. border patrol.
According to an internal report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), more than half of Border Patrol personnel may be terminated for failure to get the COVID-19 vaccine. This would leave just 8,000 officers on duty.
The report notes that “in the worst-case scenario, agents who have not reported their status have done so because they refuse to take the jab, and so they will be terminated (scenario 3). In that case, net attrition could exceed 11,523 agents, leaving a mere 8,013 border agents on patrol.”
If the approximately 10,000 Border Patrol agents who have yet to register their vaccination status do not do so this week, they will be offered counseling, then suspension, then termination.
All this comes despite the fact that the illegal aliens coming into the country without permission are not required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to be granted entry.
The Biden White House’s refusal to enforce existing immigration law has prompted states in addition to Florida to take action. Notably, the attorneys general of Texas and Missouri have partnered to sue the federal government in order to compel it to complete the border wall started under the Trump administration.
This week, the two AG’s filed a preliminary injunction seeking an immediate ruling. They argue that because Congress already specifically appropriated $3.8 billion toward the construction of the border wall, Biden’s decision to not go through with the project is a violation of the separation of powers and the Take Care clause of the Constitution.
The surge of illegal aliens across the border is unlikely to decrease under Biden. Mexican officials are expressing concern that over 125,000 Haitian migrants are anticipated to reach their country by the end of the year, with the majority of those arrivals destined for the U.S. border.
The U.S. Border Patrol has already surpassed the total number of migrant apprehensions made in any year along the southwest border since the agency’s creation in 1924. According to a source, the figure has reached 1,646,000 for the year.
