Florida seeks to grant military and highway patrol authority to deport migrants

Miami, (EFE) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, presented an immigration plan to the Trump administration. The plan would use members of the Florida National Guard as judges to deport immigrants and allow the Florida Highway Patrol to conduct its own immigration raids.

The governor’s proposal requests authorization from the federal government to use the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, a military justice branch, of the Florida National Guard as immigration judges to “help expedite legal immigration processing.”

In addition, DeSantis explained that 100 Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) officers have already assumed the role of deputy marshals of the Florida Marshals Service through a 287(g) agreement, which will allow them to execute federal court orders and “remove dangerous criminal aliens.”

“What we have now with the FHP is that they can conduct immigration operations completely independently of the federal government, and there’s no one else in the country doing that,” he declared at a press conference in Tampa.

As an example, he cited “Operation Black Tide,” the largest immigration operation carried out in a single US state, with a record 1,120 immigrants arrested from April 21 to 26 in Florida, where seven local agencies collaborated with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The ‘Black Tide’ was a model special force where these agents now work together at the FHP. They can conduct operations, they can detain illegal immigrants, and they can do everything an immigration agent would do up to the point where they are processed for deportation,” the governor described.

The governor reported on the plan he submitted to the Trump administration to contribute to new migrant detention centers and expand apprehensions.

With this, he asserted that “Florida will be the leader in the fight to enforce immigration law.”

One in five residents is an immigrant in Florida, where there are approximately 5 million foreign-born people, according to the American Immigration Council.

But this state has been a leader in enforcing Trump’s immigration policy, as DeSantis has passed state laws banning sanctuary cities and imposing fines of up to $5,000 and suspending or removing officials who violate these provisions.

As a result, more than 100 government agencies and every county in Florida have signed 287(g) agreements, in addition to several dozen cities, such as Coral Gables, Hialeah, Miami Springs, West Miami, Key West, Orlando, and Doral. EFE