Trump denies plans to fly migrants from border to Florida

MIAMI — President Donald Trump on Sunday denied reports that hundreds of migrants would be flown from the Mexican border to Florida and other areas in the U.S. interior to lessen the workload at crowded Border Patrol facilities.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, also on Sunday, acknowledged that federal o cials did initially alert local leaders of the possibility that migrants would be flown to two South Florida counties. But Trump appeared to blame the media for “false reporting.”

“There are no plans to send migrants to northern or Coastal Border facilities, including Florida,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “...Our country is FULL, will not, and cannot, take you in!”

The office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also said Sunday that Trump told him he didn’t approve and wouldn’t authorize to fly the immigrants.

The governor’ spokeswoman Helen Ferre said DeSantis spoke with Trump on Saturday, two days after local o cials reacted with alarm to a U.S. Border Patrol notification that 1,000 migrants could be sent on a weekly basis to Palm Beach and Broward counties, starting in about two weeks.

After the plan was attacked by local leaders last week, federal o cials initially said the flights were only being considered and nothing was happening immediately.

On Sunday, McAleenan said that Florida and other cities in the interior were no longer in consideration. He appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and said the plan “wasn’t going to be an e ective use of government resources.”

“We looked at it from a planning perspective. We do have stations in Florida ... they are very small stations, they have a few agents that are busy patrolling their areas,” he said. He added that the decision to take the sectors of Miami, Detroit and Bu alo o the table was made Saturday by John Sanders, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The agency’s Miami sector includes all South Florida.

“We had to look at all options,” he said.

The government has run out of space to process migrants who have been arriving at the Texas border. McAleenan said there are currently 16,000 people in custody at Border Patrol stations and ports of entry.

The government began flying hundreds of migrants from Texas to San Diego, to distribute the workload at Border Patrol facilities more evenly.

Once migrants are processed, they are released and given a court date in a city where they plan to reside, often with family members, which could be anywhere in the U.S.