Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday that President Biden’s border policies would secure him “honorary” membership in a Mexican drug cartel.
Speaking at an unrelated press conference in Okaloosa County, DeSantis panned Biden for allowing a Trump-era border control measure to end and argued that the country’s southern perimeter has come undone.
“He is violating his own oath of office by allowing massive numbers of people to come across the border illegally,” DeSantis said. “Those border communities are just getting killed down in southern Texas with everything coming in.”
DeSantis said porous borders are accelerating America’s fentanyl crisis and that narcotics are flowing over the border unchecked.
“Biden should be given an honorary membership in the Mexican drug cartels,” he said. “Because nobody has done more to help the cartels than Biden with his open border policies.”
Enacted in March 2020 amid a worsening pandemic, Title 42 barred asylum seekers from gaining entry to America from the Mexican border.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ruled that the restriction was no longer warranted on health grounds and recommended that it end.
Democrats and health officials argue that legitimate asylum seekers should have an opportunity to enter the country while Republicans contend that lifting the law will hasten illegal crossings.
The Biden administration has pushed back on claims that it’s being negligent at the border, arguing that it’s stiffening penalties for those who enter the country illegally.
DeSantis vowed to cancel contracts with companies that transport illegal immigrants into Florida and to reroute them away from the state.
He also addressed the Biden administration’s paused effort to establish a federal Disinformation Board to detect and suppress information it deemed illegitimate or harmful.
“The way they are doing it is, whatever the regime wants they are going to say is truth, and then if you dissent from that they’re going to say it’s misinformation,” he said.