Gov. Ron DeSantis continued Monday to float ideas about where he might send undocumented immigrants if the federal government sent them to Florida.
The Governor made his threats on the “Ingraham Angle,” again asserting the state’s position that they should be sent to other places.
DeSantis is putting his money where his mouth is: his proposed budget includes an $8 million allocation for relocating the undocumented.
“Our view is that if they’re going to be dumping, we want to be able to facilitate transfer to places like Delaware. And so we have $8 million in my new budget to be able to do that,” DeSantis said.
This line about Delaware, the home state of President Joe Biden, has been used before.
“If you sent (them) to Delaware or Martha’s Vineyard, that border would be secured the next day,” DeSantis said last week in Jacksonville when unveiling a series of proposals designed to address undocumented immigrants being transferred to Florida.
During the interview, DeSantis sounded as if the flights were still going on, even though he had said weeks back that the migrant flights had ceased.
“Well, actually the Biden administration puts people on planes and flies them into Florida in the wee hours of the morning,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis denounced contractors who may have been part of the flights last spring and summer, saying that Biden’s border policies were “effectively a human smuggling operation.”
Among the proposals DeSantis is advancing is a prohibition of state business with those contractors, as well as potential restitution for money made shipping these people.
DeSantis avoided taking some of Ingraham’s bait.
He sidestepped a question framing his policy push as motivated by 2024 concerns, and also redirected a question about a Washington Post op-ed accusing him of “paving his path to the White House on the backs of vulnerable immigrant children.”