Thousands of immigrants headed to South Florida
Officials: Trump administration to move families from crowded border camps
The Trump administration is preparing to move hundreds of immigrants from overcrowded camps along the U.S. border to Broward and Palm Beach counties, local officials said Thursday.
Broward Mayor Mark Bogen and Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said they were told to expect two planeloads of immigrants each week, starting in about two weeks. The 270 weekly passengers — about 1,000 each month — would be split, with half going to Palm Beach County and half to Broward.
Confusion and disbelief swirled late Thursday around the reports, which were not confirmed or acknowledged by the Trump administration. Local members of Congress, Florida’s two Republican senators and even Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said they didn’t
know about it.
“The governor’s office was not informed of this decision,” his spokeswoman said in an email. “Florida counties do not have the resources to accommodate an influx of illegal immigrants.”
In an afternoon news conference organized after the news broke, Sheriff Bradshaw said the Miami border patrol operations chief “came up” to talk to him about it earlier this week.
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, a DeSantis appointee, also said he was advised, but not by border patrol. In an email, Tony said the information, which “was also shared with me by my trusted colleague” Bradshaw, was not confirmed by state or federal officials. He said he passed it on to Bogen so Broward could be prepared, and is “currently awaiting a scheduled calendar meeting with my County Commissioners.”
The immigrants are families who crossed the border illegally into El Paso, Texas, and who indicated they were Florida-bound, Bradshaw said. They will be processed at U.S. Customs and Border Protection Offices in Dania Beach and in Riviera Beach, and released into the community, expected to return for hearings, he said.
The federal government isn’t offering to help, he said.
“No accommodations for transportation leaving there. No accommodations for shelter or a place to live. Just no real plan what is going to happen to these people,” Bradshaw said.
Housing, food, health care and schooling for the children will be up to local communities, he and Bogen said.
“I asked if there was an end date to this and they said no,” Bradshaw said in the news conference.
There was no mention of immigrants being transferred to Miami-Dade or any other Florida county.
Palm Beach County Mayor Mack Bernard said that the county would do what it could to help and would demand reimbursement from the federal government. He said a state of emergency might need to be declared.
Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said the federal government should provide funds upfront to care for the migrants. She questioned the logic of the plan.
“I have grave concerns about placing families in Florida less than three weeks prior to the start of hurricane season,” Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said. “This is poor planning on the part of the Trump administration.”
The inundation could overwhelm communities already grappling with a growing homeless population.
Mayor Bogen said Broward would “do everything possible to help these people,” and would call on nonprofits, businesses and charities to take people in.
But he called the idea “irresponsible” and said immigrants could be left homeless. If so, Bogen said, “I would suggest that we bring them to the Trump hotels and ask the president to open his heart and home as well.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, said he was hesitant to address reports of the immigrant transfers, because “no one in the administration seems to know what is happening.” He was among the local members of Congress who denounced the idea and asked for a briefing.
Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter Thursday to the Department of Homeland Security asking if there are plans to transfer migrants to states that don’t border Mexico, and if so, to where. He asked how the destination cities or counties were chosen and whether the department had let them know so they could prepare.
“It is clear the current situation is untenable and the Department is faced with difficult choices given the lack of resources appropriated to secure our nation’s southern border,” he wrote.
As border crossings surge, the U.S. government has begun moving migrants out of the border camps to be processed elsewhere. The Associated Press reported on Monday that U.S. Customs and Border Protection was taking the rare step of flying migrants to less crowded locations for processing. The flights are managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a cost of $6,000 each.
The Trump administration confirmed in mid-April that it was exploring ways to send undocumented immigrants to “sanctuary cities” — cities seen as flouting U.S. immigration law to protect people from deportation.
Broward and Palm Beach counties are both Democratic strongholds. Neither considers itself a sanctuary for illegal immigrants, though they sometimes are labeled as such.
In an April 12 Tweet, the president said, “Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only….”
“We hope it is not politically motivated, and they shouldn’t shift a crisis at the border to Palm Beach County,” Bernard said.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis echoed that: “It would be disappointing to think that our federal administration would be using victims of poverty and despair as pawns in a game that has become more political than substantive.”
The Florida Legislature recently passed a bill banning sanctuary cities. All state agencies and local governments would be required to respond to detainer requests from federal immigration enforcement officials of suspected illegal immigrants in their custody. Gov. DeSantis has said he supports such a ban but has not yet signed the bill.
Sanctuary policies have been a political lightning rod throughout the country in recent years. Ten states have passed laws favoring them, and nine have adopted laws to restrict them or ban them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Both Broward and Palm Beach counties stopped honoring immigration detention requests involving inmates after a 2014 court ruling. That ruling said jails would be violating inmates’ civil rights if they held them beyond their release dates without a signed judge’s order.
Miami-Dade does honor the federal government’s requests to detain people.