Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Wednesday defended his decision to send unlawful migrants from El Paso, Texas, to Sacramento, California, on flights paid for by the State of Florida.
Two flights carrying 36 unlawful migrants arrived in Sacramento last week on private planes procured by the State of Florida. Most of the passengers were from Venezuela and Colombia and were bused to New Mexico before being flown to California.
Speaking at a Wednesday roundtable on immigration he hosted in Sierra Vista, a city near the southern border in Arizona, DeSantis explained his reasoning.
“You can see why for some people coming illegally, a place like California — they give benefits, they give unemployment checks, they do all that — so you can see why some of those folks were interested in going in that direction,” DeSantis argued, per KCRA.
“In Florida, we’ve done the opposite way; we said we’re going to have a legal workforce, we’re not going to have benefits, basically trying to disincentivize it, other states have tried to incentivize it, and so I think they should be the ones to pay to do it,” he said.
Both planes of unlawful migrants were dropped off in front of the offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento.
The incident, similar to when Governor DeSantis flew unlawful migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last September, ignited a war of words between DeSantis and California’s elected officials.
California’s officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom, accused DeSantis of breaking the law and coercing unlawful migrants onto flights.
“Let’s level set here. A governor had to send his taxpayer funded operation to ANOTHER state to find people to use as pawns. He lied to them. Bussed them to yet another state. Flew them on a taxpayer funded charter flight. Then dumped them on the steps of a catholic charity. All for his own pathetic scheme to gain attention. We will not be backing down from holding those involved accountable,” Newsom wrote on Twitter.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta threatened to file kidnapping charges against Florida officials who conducted the operation.
“State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice. It is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said of Governor DeSantis’ operation, per reporting from The Texas Tribune.
Governor DeSantis responded by releasing a video on Tuesday showing the migrants signing waiver forms, dancing on the bus to the plane, and celebrating their transport to California.
BREAKING: The State of Florida just released a video purporting to show the migrants they just flew to CA for the purpose of claiming they went voluntarily and were not kidnapped. pic.twitter.com/Ge8yJfUiSF
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 6, 2023
At Wednesday’s roundtable, DeSantis claimed California’s status as a sanctuary state has contributed to the ongoing border crisis.
“These sanctuary jurisdictions are part of the reason we have this problem — because they have endorsed and agitated for these types of open border policies. They attack the previous administration’s efforts to try to have border security,” DeSantis claimed, per reporting by CBS.
“So then what? When they have to deal with some of the fruits of that, all of a sudden, they become very, very upset about that?”
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