Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is deploying 250 law enforcement officers and an air-and-sea fleet to Florida’s southern waters to help curb a potential wave of Haitian immigrants.
Haiti has spiraled after weeks of chaos and violence, with gangs controlling 80% of the capital and large swaths of countryside, forcing tens of thousand of people from their homes. Prime Minister Ariel Henry stepped down on Tuesday to make way for a transitional government, and the US and other countries have evacuated non-essential embassy personnel.
“No state has done more to supplement the (under-resourced) U.S. Coast Guard’s interdiction efforts; we cannot have illegal aliens coming to Florida,” DeSantis said in a statement on Tuesday.
While the US Coast Guard repatriated about 65 Haitians located near the Bahamas this week, there’s no current indication of a mass exodus to Florida, which lies 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Haiti.
The governor said he will send up to 133 Florida State Guardsmen to the Florida Keys, alongside additional support from the state’s National Guard, department of law enforcement, highway patrol and fish and wildlife conservation commission.
Florida has been seeing an increase in the number of migrants from Caribbean nations like Cuba and Haiti coming by boat. About 500 Cuban migrants arrived to the small islands of the Florida Keys in January 2023 over three days.
DeSantis, a Republican and former presidential candidate, has also been a vocal critic of immigration at the southern border. He pledged last month to send Florida troops to Texas to help with a crackdown at the US-Mexico border.
