A California state lawmaker is calling for an investigation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the “illegal trafficking of migrants.”
DeSantis “illegally trafficked vulnerable migrants across state lines” and transported illegal aliens “unknowingly” to California to score “cheap political points,” California Assemblyman Evan Low, a Democrat, said Tuesday in a written statement.
DeSantis, a Republican, had three dozen illegal aliens flown to the California capital of Sacramento in June, arguing that the state’s sanctuary cities “endorsed and agitated for these types of open-border policies.”
The Florida governor signed a bill in February to create what is called an Unauthorized Alien Transport Program in the state’s Division of Emergency Management, authorizing $10 million for the 2022-2023 fiscal year to transport illegal aliens.
“To mitigate the effects of this crisis on the State of Florida, the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program is created … for the purpose of facilitating the transport of inspected unauthorized aliens within the United States, consistent with federal law,” the legislation reads.
Low called the Florida law “inhumane and illegal,” adding that the governor’s decision to transport illegal aliens to California’s sanctuary cities should be “swiftly investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern told The Daily Signal that Low’s actions are unsurprising, noting that “the California State Assembly wastes time on political stunts instead of making child sex trafficking a serious felony.”
“In Florida, Governor DeSantis signed legislation to make pedophiles eligible for the death penalty, and California removed mandatory sex offender registration for statutory rape,” Redfern said.
“As for immigration,” the governor’s spokesman said, “sanctuary jurisdictions made it well known that they support an open border, and we will make sure that those jurisdictions feel the effects of Biden’s border crisis.”
Low’s office did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.
DeSantis received criticism from Democrats last year when he had nearly 50 illegal aliens flown to Martha’s Vineyard. In response, President Joe Biden accused him of “playing politics with people’s lives.”
Since Biden took office in January 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than 6.5 million illegal aliens crossing at America’s borders. That figure doesn’t include an unknown number of “gotaways.”
Since the start of fiscal year 2023 on Oct. 1, Customs and Border Protection has reported encountering more than 1.7 million illegal aliens on the southwest border alone.
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