DeSantis readies more migrant flights as he intensifies fight with Biden

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to resume transporting migrants from the Texas border to Democrat-run cities, further escalating the Republican’s confrontation with the Biden administration over immigration.

Building on the program that DeSantis used to fly nearly 50 mostly Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in September, the state’s Division of Emergency Management this week chose three different vendors to “provide ground and air transportation and other related services” to support future trips.

DeSantis, widely seen as a potential candidate for president, on Wednesday also signed into law a bill that has $12 million to continue the migrant relocation program as well as a series of additional measures that aim to crack down on illegal immigration but have been billed as critics as cruel.

“A lot of these sanctuary jurisdictions, they say they want open borders, they say that nobody is illegal — they get mad when people want to enforce the border,” DeSantis said at a bill signing in Jacksonville. “And yet when these people, the illegal aliens, are brought to their jurisdictions they scream bloody murder. You saw it in Martha’s Vineyard, you see it in New York City.”

Florida’s move to gear up for more migrant flights, encompassed in a state agency decision, comes at a critical moment for immigration in the U.S. with Title 42 expiring on Thursday night and a massive uptick in immigrants crossing the border expected to follow. DeSantis is leveraging the flight program — and Florida’s newly enacted sweeping immigration bill — to mount a new attack on the Biden administration, which he claims is falling short on securing the border.

“Where is this president’s energy? Where is his vigor? Where is his commitment to the cause?” DeSantis said. “He’s just sitting around doing nothing of importance or nothing of note while the American people suffer.”

This comes after Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature voted this year to expand the program by allowing the state to spend money to move migrants from anywhere in the U.S., not just Florida.

The state agreed to contract with Vertol Systems Company Inc., which operated the initial migrant flights last year, ARS Global Emergency Management and GardaWorld Federal Services to carry out the new travel, according to agency documents.

But other elected officials, Republican and Democrat, have also transported migrants around their states and the country. Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has bused more than 13,000 migrants from his state to blue strongholds like New York City, Chicago and Washington, saying that Texas is ill-prepared to handle the massive influx of migrants crossing the border. Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis chartered buses to transport migrants to New York and Chicago last winter after asylum seekers were stranded in Denver during a major snowstorm.

Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams is working to resettle migrants elsewhere in New York to ease the burden on the city. His administration is also working with migrants to identify other states that can take them and has criticized President Joe Biden for not doing more to stem the tide of migrants. Almost 60,000 migrants mostly from Latin America have come to New York since last Spring.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday blamed congressional Republicans for refusing to “meet us at the middle and come up with a real solution.”

“The President has been dealing with this system that has been broken for decades,” she told reporters on Air Force One en route to New York.

Prospective vendors seeking to work with Florida on the flights raised several questions during the bidding process with one even inquiring if any “negative media” was expected. That same vendor also wondered if the job would “require a lot of diplomacy.” “There is potential that movement can be viewed as controversial (as it was in the past),” the unnamed vendor wrote in the question.

“While my team and I will ensure that that precise procedures, protocols and etiquette are maintained and followed at all times, politicians from other states and media might desire to put a negative spin on the movement for their benefit.”

Florida has dedicated $22 million in total to fund the migrant flights, which includes $10 million approved in a February special session and $12 million in the immigration bill DeSantis signed Wednesday.

The new legislation not only includes more money for the program but also requires medium-sized and large employers to use E-Verify to check the status of new employees. The legislation,S.B. 1718, also mandates hospitals to ask patients about their legal status and will also allow authorities to charge someone with human trafficking if they knowingly transport an undocumented migrant across state lines. The measure also bans an undocumented immigrant from driving a car in Florida even if they have a driver’s license from another state.

Those expansions have been slammed by Democrats, groups that work with migrants and even Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador earlier this week.

“Why does [DeSantis] have to take advantage of people’s pain, of migrants’ pain, of people’s need for political gain,” López Obrador said at a press conference. "This is immoral. This is politicking."

DeSantis’ efforts to tout his tough-on-illegal immigration credentials got its biggest boost — and condemnation — with the flights his administration arranged last year and is expected to resume shortly. The flights triggered lawsuits, including one that is still pending in federal court in Massachusetts that accused the governor of violating the migrants’ constitutional rights by coercing and tricking them to get on flights to Martha’s Vineyard.

DeSantis defended the program Wednesday as a means to bring attention to the border, though critics have alleged he trafficked vulnerable people as a political stunt.

“The reality is, it’s shining a light on how absurd the federal government’s policies are,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “We have to stop this nonsense; this is not good for our country. When even sanctuary jurisdictions are saying they can’t bear the burden of it, you know this is no way to run a government."

Ekaterina Pechenkina contributed to this report.