(Headline USA) Florida lawmakers voted last week to expand Gov. Ron DeSantis’s migrant flight program sending immigrants who have illegally crossed into the state to leftist “sanctuary” cities and states.
The new bill, passed on Friday, permanently establishes the “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program,” allowing the state to send immigrants to any blue state with self-described “sanctuary” policies.
“People are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country,” DeSantis said at a news conference last week. “We can just sit here and do nothing about it or we can actually stand up and say, ‘Whatever tools we have at our disposal, we are going to be using.’”
The law takes specific aim at the Biden administration for failing “to secure the nation’s borders” and proving “itself unwilling to address this crisis.” The bill says that “without such action” by Florida, “detrimental effects,” including “increased crime, diminished economic opportunities and wages for American workers, and burdens on the education and health care systems,” could occur.
The program was first established by DeSantis last year and used to send a group of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a ritzy East Coast town inhabited by wealthy billionaires that describes itself as a “sanctuary city.”
Leftists blasted DeSantis for “trafficking” migrants, but polls showed a majority of residents in his home state of Florida supported the flight. According to a Spectrum News/Sienna College poll, 49% of likely Florida voters support sending illegal migrants to other states, while 44% do not support the action.
Ninety percent of Republican respondents supported the decision, an impressive 50% of independent voters were also on board. Only 10% of Democrats supported the relocation.
Other Republican governors, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and former Ariz. Gov. Doug Ducey, also shipped migrants to liberal so-called sanctuary cities, such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
