JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference Thursday morning at an airport in Jacksonville, announcing the Florida National Guard and State Guard would deploy to Texas amid what he calls an invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Florida State Guard, made up of civilian volunteers, first existed as a WWII-era state defense force active from 1944 to 1947, re-established in 2022 to bolster Florida’s ability to conduct disaster recovery and response efforts. A bill approved last week in a state House committee seeks to allow the State Guard to operate outside of the state any time DeSantis deems necessary, yet it appears the governor isn’t waiting to be demonstrative.
“If Texas is helping to erect barriers, putting up razor wire, doing other things to keep illegal aliens out, I want to be helpful with them doing that, I don’t want to be part of the federal government trying to tear down these barriers and let more people in illegally,” DeSantis said, claiming 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the U.S. since President Joe Biden was sworn in.
The operation — which will include up to one Florida National Guard battalion and also mark the Florida State Guard’s first ever such deployment — will take place “relatively shortly,” DeSantis said.
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It follows Operation Lone Star, which in spring 2023 saw hundreds of Florida National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers sent to Texas in response to the border state’s call for aid through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). The upcoming deployment will also be in response to Texas’ EMAC summons, according to the governor.
“The goal is to help Texas fortify this border, help them strengthen the barricades, help them add barriers, help them add the wire that they need to so that we can stop this invasion once and for all. The states have to band together to be able to defend the rule of law, and we see the problems, the drugs, the crime, just the sheer number of people,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis was joined at Cecil Airport by Florida State Guard Director Mark Thieme, Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner and John D. Haas, adjutant general of the Florida National Guard.
Haas went into further detail regarding the business, past and present, that Florida has in Texas.
“The Florida National Guard was the first in the nation to mobilize rotational units to the southwest border in support of Operation Lone Star. During the deployment, the Florida National Guard supplied over 700 soldiers to support border security operations and today, as directed by our governor and commander in chief, we’re again mobilizing the Florida National Guard to provide up to a battalion-size multipurpose task force to support the security operations along the Texas border while continuing to provide critical support to our citizens in the state by conducting ongoing security efforts and related mission sets here in Florida, to include interdiction missions, supporting the Florida Highway Patrol, continued staff support with the Department of Corrections and sustained aviation support in the Florida Keys,” Haas said.
DeSantis on Wednesday prevailed in a court battle brought by the Walt Disney Company, granting the state’s motion to dismiss a free speech lawsuit accusing the governor of retaliation over the company’s criticism of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law after he signed a bill transferring control of Disney’s long-standing special taxing district to a state-appointed board. U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor ruled Disney did not have standing to sue the governor and can’t challenge a facially constitutional action by claiming such a motive. Disney will appeal the decision, according to a statement.
When asked Thursday for a comment on the decision, DeSantis said he was shocked Disney intends to appeal, urging the company to move on.
“My wife and I believe and I think the vast, vast majority of parents in Florida and throughout the country believe kids should be able to just be kids. You go to school, you’re not having an agenda shoved down your throat, you’re not being told that you can switch genders, you’re focusing on the basics, and so ultimately the initial fight was about that, you know? Disney was against it, they were wrong, we were right and we did that,” DeSantis said. “I’m shocked that they’re saying they’re going to appeal it. I think that’s a mistake. I think that they should just kind of move on. You’re in the state that’s No. 1 for business in America right now. We have the lowest unemployment amongst large states, highest GDP growth amongst large states. Is it so bad that you actually have to live under the same laws as everybody else, including your competitors? Of course not. This is not a matter of high principle for them. This is a matter of them trying to claw back special privileges that they were never entitled to in the first place.”
DeSantis also responded to a question regarding his administration’s recent reversal of a policy that allowed Floridians to obtain a driver’s license reflecting their gender identity. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a former Democrat member of the state House, is among critics of the change, having stated in his current capacity as a senior policy analyst for LGBTQ-advocacy group Equality Florida that “these policies are intended to make the transgender community feel unsafe and unwelcome in Florida, and to push them out of public life entirely.”
The governor, denying that the move targeted transgender people, harped Thursday on “objective biological realities.”
“It’s not targeting anybody. It’s just, we got to recognize, what’s the fact, OK? You’re born one way or another. There’s only two, OK? You know, I (hear) this, like, thing where people say, you know, you have a baby and it’s like a gender assigned at birth? No, no, no, no. I mean, God’s been doing this a while, OK? It’s either one or the other and that’s just what it is,” DeSantis said. “Now, how someone can see to themselves and all that, that is subjective, OK? And so I think what we have to do from the state perspective is just focus on the objective biological realities because the minute you go off of that, the minute it can be subjective. Well, what else can be subjective?”
See Thursday’s news conference again in the media player below:
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