Border Patrol Official: Migrants Won’t Be Sent to Florida ‘at this Time’ Following Blowback

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official said late Friday that plans to send migrant families to South Florida have been put on hold temporarily following a backlash from state lawmakers.

The development came after Broward and Palm Beach county officials said they were notified by U.S. Border Patrol that more than a 100 immigrants would be sent weekly to each of the counties starting in the next two weeks. According to NPR, the official,  speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the agency will not be “transporting any family units to Florida at this time,” but left the door open to “possibly housing and processing migrants at other U.S. Border Patrol sectors across the nation.”

Earlier Friday, Florida’s governor said he planned to fight a federal plan to fly immigrants from the Mexican border to two South Florida counties, vowing he would take his case to President Donald Trump.

“We cannot accommodate in Florida just dumping unlawful migrants into our state. I think it will tax our resources, the schools, the health care, law enforcement, state agencies,” DeSantis told reporters in Sarasota after a bill signing ceremony.

In a statement to WPTV, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw confirmed that the administration would not follow through with sending the migrant families to the Sunshine State. He said:

It appears that Border Patrol has backed off its initial plans to transport a thousand illegal immigrants to South Florida. I want to thank the community for its support. I also want to thank all the elected officials that came to the press conference to support our efforts and thank the governmental officials that stepped forward to make sure that, if in fact this happened, we would have the proper plans in place. Because of everybody’s efforts, we are able to stop what had appeared to be a crisis for our community.

As Breitbart News previously reported, at the Department of Homeland Security’s current rate, over 40,000 border crossers and illegal aliens are released into the interior of the U.S. each month, while over 10,000 are being released every week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.