Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that he does not want the immigration concerns plaguing southwestern states to be "imported into the state of Florida" after video footage captured over the last week appeared to show a busload of illegal immigrants being dropped off in the Sunshine State.
Asked by reporters about transportation companies bringing illegal immigrants to Florida and hotels sheltering them in the state, DeSantis said he does not wish for the problems at the southern border to become problems in Florida and that those who played in role in transporting or harboring migrants will be burdened with the cost.
"If you're knowingly involved in that, you're doing stuff that we don't want". DeSantis said during a press conference. "We don't want the problems at the southern border to be imported into the state of Florida. And so people that are instrumental in that, we want to hold accountable by, of course, denying business opportunities with state and local but, maybe even more important, making them pay restitution for all the costs that's going to end up doing."
The governor was responding to a video captured by an independent journalist showing what appeared to be a bus of migrants transported from the southern border.
"We're not going to let Biden's recklessness at the border impose costs on the state of Florida," he said.
DeSantis went on to explain that transportation companies bringing legal migrants to the state will not be subject to the aforementioned costs.
This comes after DeSantis asserted in November that the Biden administration had sent more than 70 planes full of migrants from the southern border to Jacksonville.