DeSantis deploying National and Florida State Guards to Texas: Controversial move draws ire from the left
On February 1, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, back in the Sunshine State after bowing out as a candidate in the 2024 presidential race, made the announcement that he’ll be sending approximately 1,000 members of the Florida National Guard and State Guard to Texas to assist with the flow of immigrants coming into the U.S. across out southern border.
DeSantis said he’ll be deploying those Floridian Guard members to “assist” Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott has declared an invasion of migrants coming across the border.
If you’re in the DeSantis camp, this is a necessary move to help solve the border crisis. But there are those who take a more critical view and feel that DeSantis should instead be taking care of business in his home state, calling his “Stop the Invasion” press conference and deployment of troops a political stunt, a waste of Florida’s resources, and wonder if it’s even legal?
Florida Democrats have been vocal in their criticisms of DeSantis’ latest move. Former Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried, now Florida’s Democratic Chair, was quick to share her sentiments yesterday, saying: “What happened to focusing on Florida? This latest attempt to insert himself in the national conversation is just another political stunt with a heavy price tag for taxpayers.”
“Sending troops and tax dollars to Texas is a massive waste of resources that distracts from delivering results for Floridians,” Fried said. “Instead of using this legislative session to address the property insurance crisis, Ron and his Republican supermajority are back to their old tricks.”
This would be the first deployment of Florida’s State Guard which was re-established in 2022 after having been mothballed for the previous 75 years.
But Florida law says the State Guard, which reports directly to the governor, is to be used “exclusively within the state,” and a proposed bill to allow out-of-state deployments has not been passed by the Legislature. ~ The Orlando Sentinel
The chief criticism many in the Sunshine State have regarding DeSantis’ press conference yesterday, is that he had been distracted from his regular Governor’s duties long enough while he was away and campaigning for president – and now that he dropped out of that presidential race – he’s still an absentee governor and should be dealing with some seriously neglected problems in Florida, like the lack of affordable housing and the skyrocketing costs of homeowner’s insurance.
For more on this controversial move by Florida’s Governor DeSantis, see the video accompanying this article.
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(Cover “Stop the Invasion” photo, Image credit: Twitter)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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