TALAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday asked the Florida Supreme Court to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate whether families, local governments and transnational criminal organizations are conspiring to illegally bring migrants to Florida.
“The purpose of the grand jury will be to investigate individuals and organizations that are actively working with foreign nationals, drug cartels and coyotes to illegally smuggle minors, some as young as 2 years old, across the border and into Florida,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Pensacola.
It’s a rare use of a statewide grand jury, which has only been impaneled 20 times in more than 40 years. But it comes as DeSantis draws more attention to the issue of immigration as he seeks reelection in November. The issue has become a key political focus in Republican campaign strategies in an attempt to rebuke President Joe Biden’s policies at the border, which DeSantis says have been an “abject failure.”
In the last year, DeSantis has sent state law enforcement officers to the southern border in Texas, cracked down on Florida shelters that house and care for migrant children on behalf of the federal government, and asked the Legislature for $12 million to launch a program to relocate migrants to other parts of the country.
At the news conference on Friday, DeSantis also said the state has quietly assembled a police force with state and local law enforcement officers with the goal of targeting drug smugglers and migrants who are carrying guns illegally. The governor then signed into law a measure that aims to disrupt the federal resettlement of migrants, including unaccompanied minors, in Florida.
Shortly after the announcements, community organizers in Little Haiti who work with immigrants voiced their frustrations with the governor’s policies. They say the policies are a “power play” by the governor.
The move to assemble a grand jury, however, has broad implications. DeSantis said he wants the grand jury — which could issue subpoenas and indictments — to have jurisdiction over the entire state. He wants the presiding judge to be in the 10th Circuit, which includes Hardee, Highlands and Polk counties, because of its central location.
If the court approves the grand jury, it would be the second time DeSantis has had a request for a grand jury accepted. In 2019, he asked for a grand jury to investigate school safety measures in response to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
This time, DeSantis is making the case that the state has a “public interest” to have a grand jury examine whether Florida needs to take further action on immigration. The request emphasizes the need to examine how migrant children are coming into Florida and possibly being endangered by “illicit actors.”
DeSantis also wants the grand jury to look at whether “parents, guardians, or other family members of unaccompanied alien children” have conspired with transnational criminal organizations or other groups to smuggle, traffic or endanger migrant children.
“Because the foregoing activities occur or have effects across the state, a statewide grand jury is an appropriate vehicle to examine these matters, to identify any deficiencies in current laws and enforcement methods, and to recommend new or revised laws and enforcement methods,” according to the DeSantis administration petition.
The grand jury, DeSantis said, would examine whether local governments are violating the state’s immigration laws, including a ban on so-called sanctuary cities, which is currently the subject of legal challenges. In its petition, the administration singled out Miami-Dade County as a possible target.
The administration claims Miami-Dade County has refused to honor federal requests to take custody of migrants who are in the country illegally in local detention facilities, though it does not cite specific sources other than “reports from federal law enforcement.”
“Miami-Dade appears to be basing this unlawful conduct on fraudulent use of the victim and witness exception,” the petition says.
In Miami-Dade, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detainer requests became the source of controversy, particularly as the administration of former President Donald Trump aggressively ramped up deportations — even deporting criminal court defendants while they were awaiting trial.
In 2018, a coalition of organizations sued Miami-Dade County over the issue, which led to a settlement that adopted procedures under Florida law to exempt victims and witnesses from the detainers.
But last fall, the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office, citing the settlement, began asking the county corrections department to lift ICE detainers on people arrested for local crimes and jailed and who had — in the past — been labeled as crime victims.
The corrections department has complied with dozens of requests, although it was unclear how many of those “victims” were actually scheduled to testify in upcoming court cases, or just had been labeled as a crime victim in uncharged cases. It’s also unclear whether the corrections department, which did not return a request for comment on Friday, required backup documentation on the cases.
The Public Defender’s Office did not return a request for comment, nor did the mayor’s office.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, in a statement on Friday, said: “Every prosecutor is always concerned that individuals released to our streets do not endanger the public’s safety. Any decision involving release, including the lifting of a federal detainer, should always be cautiously considered, in accordance with the law.”
In Miami-Dade County’s Little Haiti, the governor’s policies were perceived as an attack on immigrants by groups that work closely with immigrants.
Paul Christian Namphy, lead organizer at Family Action Network Movement, said the governor’s actions were a political move to appease his base and an attempt to deprive immigrants of their humanity.
“People are leaving terrible conditions, and they deserve compassion,” Namphy said. “They deserve people to listen to what their story is.”
Namphy pointed to the U.S. history of immigration. The U.S. was a place of refuge for so many people, but now, the governor wants to change that, he said.
“The sons, the grandsons, the great-grandsons of immigrants are now turning on other people who are in great need,” he said.
Others fear DeSantis’ policies will make immigrants fear taking in their relatives, said Vanessa Joseph, a supervising attorney with Catholic Legal Services in Miami. And in the middle of a housing crisis and an ongoing pandemic, they may have nowhere to go.
“I think that folks who have been in this country, folks who are arriving to this country have struggled enough,” Joseph said. “And this adds another layer of uncertainty, and, of course, disappointment to their lives.”
DeSantis said the police force led by the Florida Highway Patrol, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and county sheriff’s offices is meant to target drug, human and weapon smuggling. He said it has been operating in Northwest Florida and that the operation has already led to arrests of people who were in the country illegally.
The intent, he said, is to expand those efforts statewide. But the details remain unclear.
FDLE and the governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for details. It is not known when the force was formed, how many law enforcement officers are part of it, or how much of its focus is to target crimes committed by people who are in the country illegally.
DeSantis said the effort has been focused in Northwest Florida, claiming that location is “ground zero in terms of the entry points for the southern border.” It is unclear how the governor has arrived at that conclusion.
Florida is also poised to launch a program under the Florida Department of Transportation to relocate migrants to other parts of the country. That program has a budget of $12 million, but the department has been silent on exactly how the program will be implemented.
In April, Texas became the first state in the nation to relocate migrants to other parts of the country in a rebuke to President Biden’s immigration policies. The program is voluntary for migrants who can show documentation that they have been processed and released by the Department of Homeland Security, and the state pays for the travel expenses, according to The Texas Tribune.
DeSantis has been silent on the logistics of the program. In an email earlier this year, the department said “all aspects of the program will be consistent with federal law,” but did not clarify whether that meant the program would be voluntary like it is in Texas.
DeSantis has boasted about his plans in numerous news conferences and late-night Fox News interviews. He says he wants to bus migrants to Delaware, a state Biden calls home.
“If you sent them to Delaware or Martha’s Vineyard or some of these places, that border would be secure the next day,” DeSantis said back in December. Martha’s Vineyard is an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
