Florida Legislature expands GOP Gov. DeSantis' program to move migrants out of state

Florida lawmakers passed a bill Friday expanding GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis' authority to flying migrants to Democrat-run states and cities.

The bill is in response to the recent influx of migrants arriving in Key West and expands the DeSantis administration's earlier efforts to move migrants to others states by formally creating the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program, according to NBC News.

Conservatives say the program is necessary to highlighting the U.S. border crisis, while liberals and others compare it to human trafficking. 

The bill passed the state's Republican-led House and Senate, in votes along party lines, and now goes to DeSantis for his signature.

Jeremy Redfern, a DeSantis spokesperson, said the governor will review the bill "in its final form and decide on the merits of the bill as presented."I

In September 2022, DeSantis flew Venezuelan migrants from Texas to the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard and said the funding came from the state budget. 

Democrats and immigrant advocates helped sue DeSantis and other state officials for claims of fraud for political purposes, over the matter. And some migrants claimed they were misled about to where they were being relocated.

The expansion of the program comes weeks after hundreds of Cubans and Haitian migrants docked in the Florida Keys.

Many of them made the journey in handmade boats that were barely seaworthy.

"We can just sit here and do nothing about it," DeSantis said last week. "Or we can actually stand up and say, 'Whatever tools we have at our disposal, we are going to be using.' "