Politics & Government
In Stealth, DeSantis Quietly Signs Migrant-Transport Measure
According to reports, the governor's office issued a terse press release at 5:37 p.m., announcing that he had signed the bill.
February 15, 2023
Update: The governor’s office issued a terse press release at 5:37 p.m. announcing that he had signed the bill.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation shoring up his authority to transport asylum seekers to “sanctuary” jurisdictions, but he didn’t do it before news cameras during a press conference. His aides hadn’t even issued a press release as of Wednesday evening.
Instead, the governor’s office posted a photo on his Facebook page of DeSantis signing the bill, passed during last week’s special session, into law. The signing on Facebook appeared to happen on Wednesday, and so far, 668 people made comments.
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In reply, he justified the transports as illuminating the situation on the Mexican border, where a crush of migrants is seeking access to the United States, and he argued they’d be better off in jurisdictions with friendly policies toward immigrants.
Like Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where his administration landed two planeloads carrying around 50 migrants in September with no advance notice to officials there. Three of those migrants are party to a civil-rights class action against the state.
The problem was that legislation passed last year authorizing these transports specified that they should be in Florida, and the state’s contractors found those migrants in Texas. The new law clarifies that they can come from anywhere within the United States.
“There has not been a single thing that has happened since Biden has been in that has raised awareness more than that,” DeSantis said during the “Digital Bill of Rights” news conference.
“I’ve got enough issues dealing with people fleeing blue states to manage everybody that’s coming here; I can’t have people all across the border coming into Florida as well and us be able to handle it. It’s just too much to handle.”
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