Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Wednesday threatened to send illegal immigrants to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware following reports the White House has directed dozens of flights of migrants to Florida in the dead of night.
Amid the ongoing border crisis, 70 flights filled with foreign nationals were flown into the city of Jacksonville in the middle of the night with no notice given to city or state officials, a Florida official told the Washington Examiner on Saturday.
“On average, there’s 36 passengers on each of these flights. And that has been going on over the course of the summer through September,” said Larry Keefe, DeSantis’ public safety czar.
Florida Republican Rep. Maria Salazar was among those to scorch the White House over the flights.
“It’s very embarrassing that this is happening … no one really asks us, the brown community, the representatives of the Latinos in this country, how do we feel about this?” she said Monday during an interview with Fox News.
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“And I’m going to tell you that this is extremely embarrassing because do you know where those people wind up at? In our barrios, in neighborhoods and we do not know if those people are child sex traffickers, if they’re drug dealers, if they’re coyotes,” she said.
Salazar called for “immigration reform,” but that might be too late for one family.
According to police, a 24-year-old Honduran man named Yery Medina Ulloa lied about his age to get into the country this year and then stabbed a man to death, WJXT-TV reported Nov. 4.
The Associated Press reported that witnesses found Medina Ulloa covered in blood near a pond in Jacksonville on Oct. 7 after police say he killed Francisco Cuellar, a 46-year-old father of four who had taken in the immigrant.
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Citing the case, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw told the AP that border agents should have known Medina Ulloa “was not a minor, was dishonest about his real identity, and should not be free to move around our country.”
The governor said in a statement to WJXT last week that the “horrific crime is the latest example of how unfettered illegal migration costs Floridians’ lives. If not for the Biden Administration’s unlawful ‘catch and release’ policy, Francisco Cuellar would still be alive today.”
On Wednesday, DeSantis was asked about the immigrant flights during a news conference in Jacksonville — and responded by threatening to send illegals flown to his state to Biden’s home state.
“We’re going to get together and figure out what we can do in the immediate term to protect folks in Florida,” the Republican governor said, noting that because the federal government has jurisdiction over the air, his options are limited.
If the federal government isn’t going to protect Floridians, he said, “then clearly, I think, the state should be able to come in and provide protections, and so that’s what we’re going to be looking to do.”
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What might DeSantis have up his sleeve? Buses headed north, he said.
“If they’re going to come here, you know, we’ll provide buses … I will send them to Delaware,” the governor said.
“If he’s not going to support the border being secured, then he should be able to have everyone there,” DeSantis said of Biden.
According to the New York Post, he was not joking. Pushaw told the paper that while the governor’s reference to Delaware was tongue-in-cheek, the idea of busing migrants out of Florida is being considered.
“To the extent that the federal government is paying for them to go all over the country and resettling them in Jacksonville, would it be against the law for us to send them somewhere else? … That’s something that I think we would want to look into,” she said.
“The big question is, how many more people can get through and what are the holes in this vetting process?” Pushaw added. “The Biden administration has not shared any information with us regarding how that vetting takes place.”
The governor’s remarks were met with a harsh backlash from leftists on Twitter.
Despicable person.
— Maria 🌊 🌊 (@mariavernon22) November 10, 2021
Florida’s fascist!
— Ginny (@Ginny20000) November 10, 2021
In their place, I’d be glad: unlike Florida, Delaware is not in the grip of a death cult.
— Skeptiguy (@Skeptiguy1) November 10, 2021
DeSantis is also working with Republican Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, who this week tweeted his ire about planes full of migrants landing in his city.
2. To be specific, this is happening in Jacksonville without any communication with us. We hear about it after they land.
— Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) November 9, 2021
The Biden administration all year has failed border communities. Now, people as far away as Florida are being asked to absorb a never-ending influx of illegal migrants, at least one of whom has allegedly killed someone.
If a state is going to be asked to house and pay for people who don’t belong in the country, and some of them might be violent, why not send them straight to Dover or Wilmington?
Delaware is not your average blue state. Delaware elected Biden to the Senate and then kept on electing him for decades until he eventually wandered his way into the White House. Shouldn’t those voters be the ones feeling the consequences?