Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that he has authorized sending police to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and Texas after the two respective states requested it.
DeSantis, a Republican, said Florida is the first state to answer a letter from Govs. Greg Abbott and Doug Ducey, both also Republicans, that asked all other states for help in policing the border.
“We’re here today because we have problems in Florida that are not organic to Florida that we’ve been forced to deal (with) over many years, but particularly over the last six months, because of the failure of the Biden administration to secure our southern border,” DeSantis said during an event on Wednesday. “And, indeed, to really do anything constructive about what is going on in the southern border.”
Law enforcement officials from a number of sheriff’s offices, Fish and Wildlife Conservation, and the Florida Highway Patrol will be sent to the two states, DeSantis said. Sheriffs from Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Lee, Bay, and Brevard counties joined DeSantis at the news conference.
While DeSantis didn’t elaborate on the nature of the police deployment, he said there will be “more information about the contours of the mutual assistance” in the future. “I’m sure in each one of these sheriff’s departments, they have deputies champing at the bit to be able to go help,” he added.
“I think there’s a lot of folks like, ‘Man, I wish I could do something to help.’ Well they have an opportunity to do it. I think you’re going to see a lot of hands go up saying, ‘Hey, send me, I want to be helpful,’” the Republican governor added.
DeSantis also used the press conference to criticize the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying that President Joe Biden rescinded a number of successful Trump-era mandates designed to curb illegal immigration. Biden has explained that it was necessary to do away with former President Donald Trump’s policies, claiming they were ineffective.
Abbott and Ducey, in their letter dated June 11, called on the other states to spare additional manpower.
