Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) at a press conference Thursday dismissed the White House’s criticism of Florida for deploying the National Guard in response to the migrant crisis.
Last week, Florida responded to the migrant surge by deploying the National Guard, generating criticism from the White House.
“So we have known for some time now, right, we’ve seen Gov. DeSantis do political stunts,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
“That is how he perceives to fix this issue from Florida, right? And he takes– you know, we’re talking about people who are coming from countries who are dealing with political strife, who are dealing with issues, where they’re trying to find asylum. And he treats them like pawns,” she continued, claiming that the White House has called the DeSantis administration out “over and over again.”
Further, Jean-Pierre bizarrely asserted that DeSantis is “creating a problem.”
“Well, I think it’s interesting because the Coast Guard actually requested the state’s assistance to handle all these vessels coming,” DeSantis said when asked about the White House’s assessment.
“But I think what we’ve done–and we’ve been very aggressive really across the board at mitigating the damage from Biden’s disastrous border policies, and part of it is, you know, just what they’re doing at the border, but part of it is the message that’s gone out to say the rules don’t matter; just show up, and you’re fine,” DeSantis said, insisting that one “can’t run a country like that.”
“And it’s caused a lot of problems. And so we were seeing, you know, the Coast Guard had brought in like 300 people that they had onboarded and put them in the Florida Keys. Well, they didn’t have the ability to take care of those folks. There’s vessels left everywhere in people’s property and all this,” he said, explaining that it prompted him to “declare a state of emergency”:
We’re there as U.S. Coast Guard moves 330+ #migrants from Dry Tortugas to Key West. Multiple landings around the new year prompted unprecedented closure of park #exclusive @WPLGLocal10 pic.twitter.com/hCl3vmoqJI
— Janine Stanwood (@JanineWPLG) January 5, 2023
“We provided coast guard the assistance that they’ve asked for. We are going to clear the vessels free of charge for those residents because it wasn’t their fault. Maybe we’ll send the bill to Biden. We’ll see,” DeSantis added:
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