POLK COUNTY, FL—Governor Ron DeSantis slammed President Joe Biden Wednesday morning for flying over 300,000 migrants into Florida, accusing the president of enacting secretive and illegal precedents.
The migrant flights are "illegal and not constitutional," DeSantis said at a Polk County press conference, where he announced $2.5 billion in highway overhauls. "They don't tell us anytime somebody comes in...It may be the case [Biden] is bringing people in under this illegal parole program, and then they're migrating to sanctuary jurisdictions,"
"We're suing over [Biden's parole program]," he added.
Biden's parole program was already challenged in court by a series of Republican-led states but was ultimately upheld by a judge last month. The program has been in effect since January 2023, allowing up to 30,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the country monthly.
Prospective participants must apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at a specified airport—though the airport is not disclosed on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection webpage. Biden has exercised “parole” authority—granted under a 1952 law—allowing him to admit people on a case-by-case basis for "urgent humanitarian reasons."
326,000 of the 386,000 migrants flown from the listed countries arrived in Miami, Florida, angering Sunshine State Republicans who accuse the President of secretly flying in unvetted migrants.
"This is a real humanitarian, national security, and health crisis that is plaguing America, and Biden is doing this unconstitutionally into the state of Florida," U.S. Rep. Cory Mills said on Fox and Friends First.
"When you are doing these consensus surveys, and you are trying to determine what area has a high, dense population for a representative, it is also modifying our maps when we are actually looking at elections."
Illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote, but Mills worried that illegal immigrant-rich areas will drive state redistricting for electoral purposes.
White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández, however, said that reports of secretly flying people into the country were “categorically false” and that all flown-in immigrants were “thoroughly screened.”
Biden has exercised parole authority more than any other president, granting entry to over 1 million people, including from wartorn Ukraine. Overall, parole has been ordered 126 times by every president since 1952 except for Donald Trump, bringing in refugees from Hungary, Cuba, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the company that flew three migrants to Martha's Vineyard under DeSantis is set to be sued on the grounds of "depriving them of their civil rights". A similar lawsuit against the Florida Governor was dismissed.
