Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is hitting back at President Joe Biden after he flew more than 300,000 illegal immigrants to the Sunshine State.
According to new data from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the Biden Administration flew 326,000 illegal immigrants using taxpayer money into Florida through a new parole program funded by the president.
Miami was the top destination for the illegal immigrants on the flights.
DeSantis said that he was not aware that the Biden Administration flew in hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens under his radar.
“They don’t tell us anytime somebody comes in,” DeSantis told reporters. “We can’t verify that, they don’t give us information on it, we have not seen though large numbers in our communities all of the sudden.”
The Republican governor reiterated his strong stance against illegal immigration, citing the state’s law of refusing to grant aliens with identification cards.
“It may be the case [Biden] is bringing people in under this illegal parole program, and then they’re migrating to sanctuary jurisdictions,” DeSantis continued. “We’re not a sanctuary state. We don’t have sanctuary cities. We’ve taken action to where you’re not getting a driver’s license. You’re not getting ID cards.”
DeSantis has vowed to fight against the Biden Administration’s illegal parole program, saying “They’re bringing people in who don’t have a right to be in this country from foreign countries.”
In January 2023, the Biden Administration announced an expansion to its parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Colombians after the October 2022 parole expansion for Venezuelans and Ukrainians. The program allows illegal immigrants to receive work permits and a two-year authorization to live in the U.S.
Since then, at least 386,000 illegal aliens have been flown into airports across the country, with 326,000 of them being shipped to Florida.
“This early evidence suggests that a great many of these inadmissible alien passengers, probably a majority, initially land at international airports in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s Florida. In fact, Florida turns out to be the top landing and U.S. customs processing zone for this direct-flights parole-and-release program, tallying at nearly 326,000 of the initial arrivals from inception through February,” observed CIS senior national security fellow Todd Bensman said.
DeSantis has accused the Biden Administration of keeping the program a secret because they are not notifying states of the arrivals of thousands of illegal immigrants.
“It is secret because they’re not telling anybody, they don’t tell us anytime someone comes in," the governor said.
Department of Homeland Security announced on the six-month anniversary of the program that 160,000 illegal immigrants had arrived in the U.S. because of the program.
