Gov. Ron DeSantis floated the idea of flying immigrants illegally in Florida to the Guantanamo Bay detention center, aligning with President Donald Trump's plan to house "high-priority criminal aliens" at the U.S.-controlled facility in Cuba.
At a press conference in Destin on Friday, DeSantis hinted he wants Florida to assist in—and even send their own—criminal migrants to Guantanamo Bay, most known for imprisoning suspected terrorists. He noted that the Cuban facility is closer than Martha's Vineyard, where he previously sent Venezuelan migrants in 2022.
"I think it'd be a great place to have criminal aliens," DeSantis said. "We're gonna be able to assist, maybe transferring over to the feds, the feds fly [the illegal immigrants] in, but you know what? Guantanamo Bay is a hell of a lot closer to Florida than Martha's Vineyard."
The governor referred to the controversial decision to fly 50 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard in 2022, earning him a slew of litigation that he has—so far—fended off. While those migrants had not been accused of crimes—as Trump's order would require—DeSantis hinted at the idea nonetheless.
"We're in the game, too," he said, suggesting Florida may charter its own planes of criminal illegal migrants to Cuba.
Under Florida's Unauthorized Alien Transport Program, state authorities can relocate migrants without legal status to other parts of the country—as they did to Martha's Vineyard and Sacramento—though it's unclear if that would apply to Guantanamo, a U.S.-controlled facility located in Cuba.
But Joe Lackey, a Florida immigration attorney, told The Floridian it would be "completely illegal."
"Governor DeSantis is acting completely illegally if he flies undocumented immigrants outside of the state of Florida and outside of the United States to Guantanamo Bay," he said via text message. "But, since he never faced any legal ramifications for his last stunt, he is only emboldened to try it again."
The U.S. has had a Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay since 1903 when they leased 45 square miles of the area from the Cuban government. Construction on a detention facility began in 2002 to house suspected terrorists, including those accused of carrying out the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan.
The facility came under fire soon after, accused of violating the Geneva Convention by torturing and abusing prisoners.
The Governor's Office did not respond to a request for comment.
