This article is an excerpt from News Service of Florida’s Backroom Briefing: Conservative Pick Coming, weekly political notes from The News Service of Florida.
DeSantis on Monday touted state immigration-enforcement efforts as surpassing 10,000 arrests.
DeSantis said the effort has been jointly carried out with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“Those are really, really big numbers,” DeSantis said during an appearance at Baker Correctional Institution, which is being used as an immigrant detention center.
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“And there’s not another state in the country that is even close in terms of this level of participation,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis said 63 percent of the people rounded up since the operation launched eight months ago had some degree of a prior criminal arrest or conviction.
A news release from the governor’s office said the people included 3,435 from Guatemala, 3,331 from Mexico, and 1,353 from Honduras.
DeSantis also said the state plans to open, “relatively soon,” a third detention facility that would be in the Panhandle or in South Florida. The plans rely upon approval from the Department of Homeland Security that includes reimbursements. The state also operates the facility dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades.
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