The DeSantis admin’s plans to help President Trump expand capacity for deportations

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration has offered the federal government an extensive plan as to how Florida can marshal its assets and resources to increase the number of deportations, a key campaign promise made by President Donald Trump as a solution to the Biden-Harris border crisis.

The Florida Immigration Enforcement Operations Plan, obtained by Blaze News, outlines the efforts being made at the state level now, the problems the state is running into, and the solutions the state can provide if given approval from the federal government.

“We are proposing an integrated federal-Florida state approach that encompasses the entire illegal alien identification-apprehension-detention-removal cycle. We believe that this approach could be leveraged to mitigate many of the bottlenecks that attend to the detention and removal portions of the existing cycle, not just in Florida but nationally,” the report says.

One part of the removal process that has been cited as a big obstacle is the lack of detention space that would be required to hold the number of illegal aliens necessary to carry out mass deportations.

The FIEO report states there are several brick-and-mortar locations in the northeastern and southcentral regions of the state that could serve as detention centers. Due to Florida’s robust response to natural disasters, the state’s emergency management division and its partners can “establish detention centers capable of housing up to 10,000 undocumented aliens. … These facilities can be fully operational within 72 hours and require up to 96 hours to begin setup.”

‘There may come a time when, without federal assistance, a long-term immigration support mission may become fiscally untenable.’

The problem is that while the detention centers can be brought up to requirements set by the National Detention Standards used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the “standards are so limiting that many county jails cannot meet the standard. … It is anomalous that facilities adequate to confine U.S. citizens are not deemed adequate to house illegal aliens.”

The report calls for the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the NDS while ensuring detainees’ needs are met.

To help with illegal immigrants who want to self-deport, the Florida Division of Emergency Management “is able to supply personnel to assist with purchasing commercial flights for eligible individuals, limited to those that do not have a criminal record.” Self-deportations are “the least fiscally demanding course of action available.”

FDEM would also be the agency responsible for carrying out state-run deportation flights, but ICE “must specifically request assistance and must reimburse the state for actual costs.”

DeSantis revealed on Thursday that he is recommending using the Judge Advocate General’s Corps within the National Guard to act as immigration judges. Training for the JAGs would be conducted by the Department of Justice, not DHS.

“To serve as Immigration Judges, JAGs must be federally activated (Title 10) to exercise immigration authority; JAGs could not support in State Active Duty under the command of the Governor and would be directed/stationed at the needs of the federal government,” the FIEO explains.

The FIEO report does warn that the “federal government has shown itself to be very hesitant to commit to any form of reimbursement to past or future immigration operations. There may come a time when, without federal assistance, a long-term immigration support mission may become fiscally untenable.”

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