As a new illegal immigration concern impacts the United States, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced that his state interdicted suspected illegal aliens fleeing Haiti.
On Friday, DeSantis said that Florida stopped a boat filled with 25 illegal immigrants, firearms, and drugs from landing in his state on February 29. He also confirmed that five of them were unaccompanied children.
The governor said that the illegal immigrants were part of a human smuggling operation. DeSantis expressed his frustration and criticism of the Biden Administration for failing to do its job of securing the border and making the United States safe. He said that it shouldn’t be left up to the states to protect its border, calling on the president to step up and take care of the crisis he created.
More from DeSantis’s press conference:
Just recently, within the last couple of weeks, and this will be made public later today, our Florida Fish and Wildlife officers interdicted a vessel that had 25 illegal immigrants, potential illegal immigrants, from Haiti. In their boat, in their vessel, they had firearms, they had drugs, they had night vision gear and they were boating very recklessly, which would potentially endanger other folks.
So that vessel was interdicted near the Sebastian Inlet, and those illegal aliens were turned over to the Coast Guard for deportation. So our folks have been doing this before we augmented this and they’re going to continue to do it, and we’ve got an incredible amount of resources that are now on display to be able to prevent. Now, what’s different today than maybe in the past? Well, part of it is we have more resources that the state has been willing to put up.
And this is not really our responsibility; this is the federal government’s responsibility. The Coast Guard does by and large a good job but they’re undermanned; they’re under-resourced, so we’re filling those gaps.
I think one difference now is — and we see this with our folks that we have at the border — you have people coming across the southern border from all over the world, Haitians can get to the United States easier by flying to Mexico and walking across the border. And so I anticipate, if flights resume, that will likely be where a lot of those folks who are trying to flee (Haiti), if they want to come to the United States they’re probably going to go to Mexico and then come in through the border knowing that Biden will just let everybody in.
The news came shortly after DeSantis’s office fact-checked a claim that said Florida agents “Do nothing” regarding illegal immigration.
“Vessels stopped are repatriated to country of origin,” said DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said. “And if individuals are found swimming, they can be detained by Florida LEOs and relinquished to the Coast Guard for repatriation.”
BREAKING: Gov. Ron DeSantis announces Florida agents have interdicted a vessel that had 25 suspected illegal aliens from Haiti
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) March 15, 2024
"They had firearms, they had drugs [...] That vessel was interdicted [and] those illegal aliens were turned over to the Coast Guard for deportation." pic.twitter.com/LIRBuEwFiO