Florida, Texas Announce Suite of Measures to Combat Illegal Immigration
Florida and Texas continue to collaborate in combatting illegal immigration with interstate training and enforcement partnerships.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott separately announced numerous measures to address “Biden’s Border Crisis” and mitigate the impact of illegal immigration. The measures included interstate partnerships, the reassignment of personnel to secure the border, and a grant program to compensate landowners for damage due to border crime.
DeSantis announced new measures during a border meeting with “sheriffs from Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and across the country.” He announced the creation of “an inter-state law enforcement partnership to bring Florida’s successful anti-illegal immigration policies and practices to more American communities.”
DeSantis’s partnership “includes a training program developed by the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force which will be made available to law enforcement agencies across the United States.”
DeSantis also issued an update on Operation Lone Star, which reallocates Florida law enforcement resources to help Texas secure its border. Texas requested the resources through the Interstate Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which “offers assistance during governor-declared states of emergency or disaster.”
Under Operation Lone Star, Florida law enforcement made contact with almost 7,000 illegal immigrants and assisted Texas law enforcement with over 300 arrests, including “for human smuggling, drug paraphernalia, unlawful carrying of weapons, and a suspect with a capital murder warrant.”
The update included footage of enforcement operations under Operation Lone Star:
According to the update, hundreds of Florida law enforcement officers remained in Texas, including units from the Florida National Guard, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Abbott signed six bills that “will expand Texas’ unprecedented efforts to hold the line and protect Texans from the record level of illegal immigration, weapons, and deadly drugs”:
Senate Bill 423 authorizes the Texas military “to use unmanned aircrafts as part of an operation, exercise, or mission” and authorizes “the use of drones for search and recovery missions after natural disasters and for monitoring the Texas-Mexico border as part of Operation Lone Star.”
Senate Bill 602 authorizes U.S. Border Patrol agents who have undergone Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) training to enforce Texas law for felony offenses.
Senate Bill 1133 establishes “a grant program to compensate agricultural landowners up to $75,000 for property damage caused by trespassers committing a border crime.”
Senate Bill 1403 authorizes Abbott “to coordinate and execute an interstate compact for border security among interested states without congressional approval.” The compact “will allow participating states to share law enforcement intelligence and resources for heightened detection and deterrence of illegal border activity.”
Senate Bill 1484 establishes “a collaborative border operations training program through DPS for peace officers employed by local law enforcement agencies along the border.”
Senate Bill 1900 “designates Mexican drug cartels and criminal organizations as foreign terrorist organizations in the State of Texas and increases penalties for the destruction of illegal drugs and the operation of stash houses.”
Abbott “also announced the deployment of new marine floating barriers to deter illegal crossings in hotspots along the Rio Grande River” to “proactively prevent illegal crossings between ports of entry by making it more difficult to cross the Rio Grande and reach the Texas side of the southern border.”
Legal Insurrection has covered Texas and Florida’s actions on illegal immigration. Texas recently announced the state would continue bussing illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities, even as many of those cities struggled to cope with the influx of illegal immigrants.
Florida recently announced a crackdown on human trafficking tied to illegal immigration with a series of bills “to combat human trafficking, raise awareness of the signs and impacts of human trafficking and impose critical reforms to hold human traffickers accountable.”
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Comments
If it doesn’t involve locking down the border it’s just whistling past the graveyard.
Lock down and start deporting. Make Biden deploy the military to stop you.
Good steps. It would be better to have a border wall and vigorous interior enforcement of immigration laws but the until Fed govt acts these steps are beyond the power of the States. In the meantime indirect steps within the power of the States can be effective.
The steps taken in FL with denial of govt ID to illegal aliens and refusal to acknowledge out of state ID issued to illegal aliens are important. It seriously impedes ability to carry on with everyday activities; driving, insurance, banking, employment and govt benefits. There’s folks putting up go fund me to pay to move from FL.
Fine! Fine! Fine!
But they’re here – and in huge numbers that stagger the mind.
What are you going to do with them? How are you going to root them out?
I guarantee that The Demented One will give them amnesty an citizenship just before the end of his term, just before the election.
We’re screwed!
increases penalties for the destruction of illegal drugs
Was this a typo of some sort? Why would they not want illegal drugs destroyed?
Looks like a misprint. The House summary of the bill refers to “delivery” of drugs
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When will ever learn?
Notice how this is being done now and not a year or two ago. Why?
To derail Trump’s campaign. The Republican Governors Association does not want Trump to be president so they are trying to cut into his winning issue.
See how long this operation lasts if Trump bows out tomorrow.
WRT Texas, it’s been under way since February, 2021, and it will last until the Feds start doing their job, if ever. These few pieces of legislation are just supplementing what’s already under way, and in some cases simply encoding into law what Abbott’s already been doing via EO.
“He announced the creation of “an inter-state law enforcement partnership to bring Florida’s successful anti-illegal immigration policies and practices to more American communities.”
The attack on this will be obvious:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress… enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State…
It looks like they’re doing it via EMAC (see link above).