This week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) fired off a letter to the Department of Homeland Security demanding the department cease the resettlement of illegal immigrants to Florida amid the ongoing border crisis.
In the letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, DeSantis called out the Biden administration for allowing illegal immigrants to resettle in the states. He argued that this policy, as well as many other Trump-era immigration policies revoked by the Biden administration, pose a security threat to Americans and place a tremendous burden on the state government rather than the federal government.
“I ask that DHS immediately cease any further resettlement of illegal aliens in Florida and that the aliens instead be removed from the United States or resettled in states that support the administration’s continued flouting of our immigration laws. Floridians welcome responsible immigration that serves the interests of Florida and the American people, but we cannot abide the lawlessness that your department is aiding and abetting on the southwest border,” the letter reads. “Unfortunately, President Biden and this administration refuse to fulfill their responsibility to enforce the immigration laws enacted by Congress.”
DeSantis, a longtime Trump supporter, piled on, noting how the former president’s administration took a more active role in securing the border. He described the current border crisis as “entirely of this administration’s own making” for reversing a slew of policies President Trump implemented.
“As you know, the administration has dismantled the highly successful immigration enforcement policies of the previous administration by, among other things, terminating the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program, reinstituting a ‘catch and release’ policy, ending further border wall construction declining to remove certain criminal aliens, and failing to make full use of public health authorities to expel inadmissible aliens, specifically unaccompanied minors, due to the pandemic. It is clear that the crisis on the border is entirely of the administration’s own making,” the letter argues. “The administration’s reversal or weakening of the prior administration’s enforcement policies has amounted to an open invitation for mass illegal migration to the United States, and the results have been predictably catastrophic.”
DeSantis highlighted the stats that show how encounters at our southern border have soared since Biden took office. In July, the DHS announced there were over 200,000 encounters at the southern border – the highest in more than 20 years. The total number of encounters this fiscal year has surmounted more than 1.3 million. “To put that number into context, the total number of encounters for the entire fiscal year of the previous administration’s last year in office was 458,088,” the letter reads.
“It is beyond reasonable dispute that this administration’s lawless policies are incentivizing mass illegal immigration to our country,” DeSantis concluded in the letter. “[T]he states, not the federal government, bear the brunt of this administration’s lawless immigration policies. The states hold the police powers in our system of government and are responsible for the health, safety, and welfare of our people. By releasing illegal aliens, including unaccompanied minors, into the United States on such a massive scale, the federal government is saddling states and local governments with the resulting health, financial, economic, and public safety costs.”