Florida Legislature Passes Bill Allowing State to Relocate Illegal Immigrants

The Florida House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing the state to transport illegal aliens regardless of the state in which they were picked up.

SB-6B, which would create an Unauthorized Alien Transport Program, passed the Florida House Friday.

Under the program, the state could transport illegal aliens, who have been processed by federal authorities in any state, Fox 10 Tampa reported. 

The legislation would also allocate ten million dollars in funding for this purpose. Additionally, the bill would permit the state government to retain contractors to assist in transporting illegal aliens. 

The bill passed 77-34 in the House and 27-12 in the Senate and now heads to  Gov. Ron Desantis’s (R-FL) desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

The legislation is thought to have been designed to shore up the governor’s authority to continue his migrant relocation policy, per Fox 13. Notably, in September, DeSantis ordered that a group of Venezuelan illegal immigrants who arrived in Texas be taken to Martha’s Vineyard.

As Breitbart News noted at the time, an NBC/Telemundo poll found 52 percent of naturalized legal immigrants in Florida agreed with this move. 

NBC News considered the political calculus underlying the policy:

…Conservative allies have pointed to the practice as a necessary tool to draw attention to the border crisis in the U.S. GOP state Rep. John Snyder also argued during floor debate on Thursday that the program was “humanitarian” because it offered a “free, chartered flight” for migrants who want to move elsewhere in the country.

Speaking at a press conference on February 1, DeSantis explained the rationale behind the program in his own words.

“I think people are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country,” WFSU quoted him as saying. “We can just sit here and do nothing about it or we can actually stand up and say whatever tools we have at our disposal, we are going to use.”

You can follow Michael Foster on Twitter at @realmfoster.