Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took aim at President Joe Biden’s immigration policies over the weekend, accusing the administration of having a double standard when it comes to allowing Cuban migrants.
“They have a hundred-times stronger case for political persecution leaving a communist dictatorship than the other migrants who are coming across the border who are basically coming across the border because they want more economic opportunity,” DeSantis said during an appearance in Texas on Saturday.
“It’s a double standard, but honest, it’s something we expected because I do think a lot of their border policies are very political in nature in its intent,” he added.
The governor’s remarks come as his state has sent 50 law enforcement agents to Texas to assist with the border crisis, which DeSantis warned had implications for states across the country.
“Where the federal government is failing, Texas is having to step up, and Florida and other states are helping,” DeSantis told Fox News host Jesse Watters.
DeSantis argued that the Biden administration has given illegal migrants the option to go anywhere in the country once they cross the border, oftentimes assisting the migrants with bus tickets to their desired destination without approval from that state’s governor.
“Most of the people that are Florida folks have admitted their ultimate destination is the state of Florida,” he said. “So this has huge implications, not just for our country as a whole but states like my own, where a lot of these folks are going to end up coming illegally.”
“When they get turned over to the feds, what the feds are essentially doing is giving them a bus ticket and letting them go where they want to go,” the governor added.
The Republican warned that current immigration policies will have lasting implications for states around the country, which will be forced to adjust policies for public schools and social services to accommodate the migrants.
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On Friday, Customs and Border Protection officials said there were nearly 190,000 migrant encounters at the border in June, bringing the total number of migrant encounters in fiscal year 2021 to over 1 million.
The number of noncitizens encountered by law enforcement last month is the highest level since Biden took office six months ago and walked back a number of Trump administration policies that had kept the numbers at less than half their present rate.
