Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has spent at least $573 million on immigration

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has spent $573 million from an emergency response fund on immigration efforts over the last three years, including millions to equip agencies with radios and high-tech cameras, his administration informed the Legislature last week.

In a report issued Saturday, the Division of Emergency Management says it expects the federal government to reimburse the state for about half of the cost. So far, it has received nothing.

In September, the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved Florida’s request for $608 million to cover immigration enforcement costs, including for the creation and maintenance of Alligator Alcatraz, the immigrant detention center deep in the Everglades. The report does not detail how much of the emergency fund has been spent on that facility.

Spokespeople for the Division of Emergency Management and DeSantis’ office did not respond to questions about why the state has yet to be paid. In response to the Miami Herald’s requests for documents related to federal reimbursements to Florida, FEMA said in December that “no records are available as the process is on hold pending verification and no reimbursement has been approved.”

The report, which was required under a law passed by the Legislature last year, is the most detailed accounting to date of how DeSantis has used billions of dollars from an emergency response fund created by the Legislature in 2022. The fund allows the governor to spend money on declared emergencies without seeking lawmaker approval.

The report was due to legislative leaders on Jan. 15 but not delivered until Saturday. Lawmakers the Times/Herald spoke to on Tuesday hadn’t seen it, including Sen. Nick DiCeglie, the St. Petersburg Republican who sponsored the bill mandating it.

House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat, said she also hadn’t seen it. But she said it was the latest piece of evidence that Florida “shouldn’t be wading into federal issues.”

“The state is unnecessarily spending our taxpayer dollars when any expenses should have been covered by the federal government,” she said.

DeSantis’ Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund has come under scrutiny in part because the administration has never detailed how it has used the money. Because it’s emergency spending, the administration also doesn’t have to comply with more than two dozen state laws and regulations, including competitive bidding requirements.

In total, DeSantis has spent more than $6.5 billion since the fund was created, according to the report. The vast majority of that money — $5.8 billion — was spent responding to six hurricanes since 2022.

DeSantis’ spending on immigration, dubbed “Operation Vigilant Sentry,” is the third-largest budget expense in the fund after Hurricanes Ian and Milton.

DeSantis declared a state of emergency in January 2023 in response to an influx of Cuban and Haitian migrants arriving by boat in the Florida Keys. According to the Florida Division of Emergency Management report, that declaration enabled expanded aerial surveillance — with the Florida National Guard running over 2,200 flights over three years spotting more than 450 immigrants along the South Florida coastline.

DeSantis has repeatedly renewed the emergency order, allowing him to drastically broaden state-level immigration enforcement operations and quickly hire vendors, some of whom were politically connected, to build Alligator Alcatraz last year.

The Alligator Alcatraz facility alone was previously estimated to cost Florida taxpayers $450 million, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Florida committed to spending more than $200 million with private contractors for the facility last July. The DeSantis administration awarded at least nine contracts to companies that donated to the governor and other Republican Party campaigns.

The report does not offer a detailed breakdown of how money was spent. But it does describe $29 million in assets purchased last year to assist with the immigration enforcement operation.

Those assets included more than $1 million for upgrading aircraft for the Florida State Guard, including outfitting them with high-tech cameras, and nearly $6 million for hundreds of portable radios.

The law also requires the Division of Emergency Management to summarize each “emergency event” from the previous year.

Those events included monitoring 75 “No Kings” protests across Florida on June 14, the report states. Florida’s emergency response team “monitored protest activity and potential impacts” from the rallies against President Donald Trump. The state also “pre-staged resources throughout the state for rapid deployment,” according to the report. The protests were peaceful.

The state also deployed emergency coordinators to Miami and Orlando to monitor 14 FIFA Club World Cup matches last year, the report states.

The state also spent $94 million in 2023 on aid and flying Americans out of Israel following the October attack by Hamas. Another $44 million was spent in 2024 flying Americans out of Haiti amid escalating violence. Last year, an emergency response company sued the state, alleging it hadn’t been paid more than $7.5 million for the Haiti flights. The case is still open.

The emergency response fund is set to expire later this month, but state lawmakers are scheduled to consider a bill Thursday that would renew it through 2027.

---------

—Miami Herald staff writer Churchill Ndonwie contributed to this report.