DeSantis, Cabinet approve $14 million for immigration crackdown

Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Cabinet on Tuesday signed off on nearly $14.1 million in grants to law-enforcement agencies throughout Florida as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Money for the immigration-enforcement grant program came from $250 million set aside by the Republican-controlled Legislature during a February special session. Lawmakers also during the special session established the State Board of Immigration, which is made up of DeSantis and the Cabinet members — Attorney General James Uthmeier, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia.

Grants can be used for training, overtime, bonuses, equipment and other items related to immigration enforcement. The 56 grants approved Tuesday ranged from a $10,882.50 request from Gulf County to $1.07 million sought by the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, and were the first batch approved since lawmakers created the program.

Items approved in the grants include bulletproof vests, AI-assisted translation software and license-plate readers.

The Board of Immigration Enforcement on Tuesday also tweaked a rule that established guidelines for the grants, changing it to allow 18 sheriffs to seek money for vans used to transport people who are in the country illegally.

Thirteen county sheriffs and Jacksonville were granted money to purchase vans. In addition, sheriffs received roughly $2.7 million to cover transportation-related costs.

The approval of the grants coincided with an escalation in immigration enforcement over the past few weeks, as more state and local law-enforcement officers get certified to participate in deportation efforts alongside the Trump administration. Sheriffs and other law-enforcement agencies are working with federal immigration officials to coordinate arrests, detention and transportation of people to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, where they can be held and processed for deportation.

Under a plan rolled out over the past few weeks, the state is divided into 18 regions and certain sheriffs within each zone are designated with the responsibility of transporting immigrants from county jails to ICE detention centers in Florida.

The Trump administration recently awarded $28.6 million to state law-enforcement agencies and more than $10 million to local law-enforcement agencies for participating in what are known as 287(g) agreements.