San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Florida officers deploy to border
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A contingent of 50 law enforcement officers from Florida have begun deploying to the Mexican border, as Gov. Ron DeSantis fulfills his vow to heed calls from his fellow Republican governors in Arizona and Texas to help bolster patrols along the country’s southern border.
DeSantis, who is up for reelection next year and is widely considered a leading potential Republican candidate for the White House in 2024, is among a group of GOP governors who have followed former President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration measures, seeking to revive a potent political weapon against Democrats for the 2022 midterm elections. Critics have slammed the move as political theater.
DeSantis has been vocal in his criticism of President Biden’s administration. “We are witnessing a catastrophe at the southern border,” he said in a statement.
Large numbers of migrants have been showing up at the border, many turning themselves over to U.S. Border Patrol agents in hopes of staying to pursue asylum cases. But the numbers of families and children traveling without their parents crossing into the U.S. have dropped sharply since March and April while the encounters with single adults have remained high.
DeSantis arrived in the state’s Panhandle on Friday to see off some of the departing law enforcement personnel, who will be deployed for 16day shifts.
“They will get there and they will be ready to go on Monday,” he said, adding that he, too, would soon be headed to the border. “We look forward to being able to see them in action.”
The personnel will be at the disposal of Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who issued a call to their fellow governors earlier this month for help — charging that the Biden administration “has proven unwilling or unable” to secure the U.S.Mexico border. GOP governors in Idaho, Iowa and Nebraska also have vowed to send personnel.
DeSantis did not say where exactly the Florida personnel would be deployed and what duties they would be performing.
The governor tried to blunt criticism that deploying officers elsewhere would leave their communities with fewer law enforcement personnel to patrol the streets at home. DeSantis argued that tightening security at the border would help keep Floridians safer by helping stop the flow of contraband, including drugs, from flowing into his state.
“This has an impact all over the United States,” DeSantis said.
Legal experts say the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the power to enforce immigration law is in the hands of the federal government.
“I understand wanting to cooperate with other states, but it seems to me that addressing what’s happening right here in Florida ought to be a priority,” said Rep. Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor, though now a Democrat, who is campaigning to challenge DeSantis in next year’s election. “It seems as though the governor wants to call everything a crisis.”