Florida to send law enforcement officers to help ‘secure’ Texas border
Florida has offered to send hundreds of law enforcement officers and national guard soldiers to Texas to help “defend the southern border,” Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office announced Tuesday, the same day that Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a letter to asking fellow governors to provide assistance at the border and absorb all of the costs.
In the letter, Abbott thanked Florida for offering “hundreds of Florida National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers, as well as assets like drone technology.”
Florida has made over 1,100 “assets and resources” available to Texas, including 800 Florida National Guard soldiers, 200 Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, 101 Florida Highway Patrol Troopers, 20 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers, and 20 Emergency Management personnel, according to a news release from the Governor’s Office. The state is also offering equipment, including drones, aircraft, and boats.
It is unclear whether all of the available resources would be deployed. Florida Division of Emergency Management spokesperson Amelia Johnson said the division is “currently staging personnel for deployment this week” and does not yet have “finalized rosters.”
According to a mission description provided by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Texas has requested the following from Florida, to “be provided to Texas with no cost to the State.”
- Three operations planning staff
- Three logicians
- Up to 800 general purpose military personnel, qualified and equipped with weapons and at least 30 rounds of operational ammunition each
- Up to one company of engineers
- 20 Florida criminal investigations division agents
- 50 Florida Highway Patrol troopers
- 10 Florida Game Wardens
“Given the crisis at the border, Florida decided to send the cavalry — law enforcement agencies and their counterparts have been in contact with Texas officials for over a week,” said Taryn Fenske, the communications director for DeSantis’ office, in a statement. “Governor DeSantis won’t let bureaucracy stand in the way of border security.”
Johnson said the deployment would not strain existing law enforcement and emergency management resources in Florida. Hurricane season begins on June 1, while Broward County continues to recover from the devastating flooding in April, and the state tackles its own migrant crisis.
“FDEM also continues our active role in supporting Fort Lauderdale as well as the ongoing surge in migration in South Florida,” Johnson said in an email. “…This does not take away from current personnel responding or deter current emergency management professionals from being available in the event of a hurricane, tropical storm, or other disaster. Our top priority is protecting citizens of the State of Florida — we are not taking resources currently in use away from their current responsibilities. Further, we are able to redirect resources if needed. I’d like to also point out that we are two weeks away from hurricane season and four months away from the historical peak of hurricane season and continue our standard hurricane preparedness operations.”
Under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, states can assist one another during emergencies. The state requesting assistance can reimburse the state offering it “for any loss or damage to or expense incurred in the operation of any equipment and the provision of any service,” according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, “any aiding party state may assume in whole or in part such loss, damage, expense, or other cost, or may loan such equipment or donate such services to the receiving party state without charge or cost.”
States can also request aid from FEMA to cover some of the costs associated with the assistance.
DeSantis answered a similar call for aid in 2021, deploying state and local law enforcement to the Texas and Arizona borders under EMAC.
Both Abbott and DeSantis criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis Tuesday, as DeSantis did previously in 2021, in justifying the need for state-to-state assistance.
“The impacts of Biden’s Border Crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government’s abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law,” DeSantis’ statement said.
Florida’s deployment will last until June 17 or 18, at which point the troops will be demobilized, according to the mission description. The costs associated with the deployment were not available Tuesday.