00:00agency management, Larry Keefe, immigration executive director in Florida, General John Haas,
00:09Florida National Guard, Department of Corrections Secretary Ricky Dixon,
00:14Baker County Sheriff Scotty Roden, Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith,
00:19St. John's County Sheriff Rob Hardwick, and Union County Sheriff Brad Whitehead.
00:24But we, you know, I'd put out, you know, there is a storm in the Atlantic.
00:30Every model has it turning and not impacting Florida or maybe even the continental U.S.,
00:37depending on when it turns.
00:38We always watch these things.
00:40You know, I'm always talking with Kevin about it.
00:42If there's anything that changes, obviously, we will be ready.
00:46But, you know, we've been watching it now for several days, and most of the models are in an agreement.
00:51It looks like it may be more of a threat for Bermuda than for certainly Florida,
00:57and it may not even impact any continental U.S.
00:59Maybe it'll do North Carolina, some of those places they get up.
01:01We'll see what happens.
01:03But we're ready to respond if that is the case.
01:08We're here today at this Baker County Correctional Facility
01:13because we're taking yet another step in supporting the important mission that President Trump was elected to implement
01:22in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws,
01:27and removing illegal aliens who are in our society now and sending them back to their home country.
01:33We have done more on this than any other state by a country mile.
01:38We're the only state in the country that requires all state and local law enforcement agencies to participate in ICE operations.
01:49We have that as a requirement of our state law based on the legislation that I pushed for earlier this year.
01:57Jay Collins, as a state senator, was with us fighting against attempts to impose sanctuary policies in Florida.
02:05Thankfully, that didn't end up happening, and we got very strong immigration enforcement legislation.
02:12Now, we've been at this for a long time, banning sanctuary cities early in my term.
02:17When Biden came in and opened the border, we sent people down to Texas at the border there to help them.
02:23When there were gaps in the maritime interdiction, we launched Operation Vigilance Century.
02:30They've interdicted 18,000 illegal aliens at sea, just us, not even including all the many more that the Coast Guard has gotten,
02:40and we're able to repatriate them to their home countries.
02:44We've also had transport programs sent to New York, sent to California, and even sent to Martha's Vineyard.
02:52And these are sanctuary jurisdictions.
02:54They like to squawk about having more illegal immigration in their communities, and yet when they're faced with it,
03:01a lot of times they get upset that they're having to deal with it.
03:04We do not provide benefits like identification cards, driver's license.
03:09And then even under my tenure, we repealed the in-state tuition for illegals that had been put in last decade,
03:17and that was something that the legislature stepped up and did.
03:20So I appreciate them doing that.
03:23So as we got into this, we were the first state to do any 287G agreements with our state agencies back in January.
03:32We've been working hard.
03:33We're on these task force with DHS and with ICE.
03:37A lot of illegal aliens can get rounded up.
03:40I mean, that's just the nature of the problem because you've had so many come in.
03:44We know in Florida there's anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 that already have final orders of removal.
03:53So they're in our country illegally.
03:55They've already gone through the process, and they've been ordered to be removed, and yet nothing had happened.
04:01So we're very keenly aware of that and working to correct that.
04:04So these 287G agreements formalize these relationships and allow us to conduct immigration enforcement operations.
04:14I mean, think about the highway patrol.
04:16When Biden was in, you could have an illegal alien driving drunk on the highway.
04:23You know, we have Rep. Michaels here.
04:26Her son was killed by a previously deported illegal alien that rammed into her son on the roadways.
04:34And so this has massive consequences for our citizens.
04:40So you'll have that, and our guys would pull over, and they would do their normal thing.
04:45But if someone who didn't have a proper license was here illegally, you would call ICE under Biden,
04:51and ICE would basically not respond, or they wouldn't come and get these people.
04:56And so you're faced with this situation.
04:59They weren't authorized to bring them to ICE under federal law at the time.
05:03And so it was really frustrating.
05:05Now they're authorized to conduct immigration enforcement actions.
05:10So our highway patrol, in that situation, they see this person's violated traffic laws.
05:16They're here illegally.
05:17They bring them directly to ICE, and they get processed, and the law gets enforced.
05:23So it's really been a sea change since the Trump administration came to power in January.
05:28And so we've been doing these things.
05:31But the one thing that DHS kept telling us is, you know, you're apprehending illegal aliens faster than we can hold, process, and deport them.
05:40And they didn't have space.
05:42And so that was the genesis of us doing alligator Alcatraz down in South Florida.
05:47You know, this is an airport that actually is used.
05:51It's used for a lot of training.
05:53But when they first built it, they actually had these visions of creating, like, the biggest airport to anyone.
05:58And that didn't end up happening.
06:00So you've got two miles of runway.
06:02You've got all this stuff that you need.
06:04And we were able to stand up this detainee processing and deportation facility in record time.
06:12So you've had now many, many hundreds that have already been processed out and that have been flown out of there.
06:19And they're doing more and more every day.
06:22And that facility can hold thousands of illegal aliens.
06:26So that was being done.
06:27And we also said, you know, we have the ability to do more than that.
06:31DHS, in their agreement with us, too, because they're reimbursing these expenses, they anticipate up to $5,000.
06:40So we said, you know, you're going to probably need a different facility if you want to do that many.
06:46And I had mentioned publicly about using Camp Blanding in Northeast Florida.
06:53And there was a lot to recommend to it.
06:55It was close to Cecil Field, so you could run flights out of there pretty quickly.
07:00Obviously, Blanding does have air capacity, but probably not a big enough runway to handle large planes.
07:07And ultimately, you know, you want to get 200 illegal aliens on a plane and fly them back to their own country.
07:12I mean, so you do need bigger planes.
07:14So we were looking at doing that.
07:16What would the build out look like?
07:17And I said, I'm prepared to move forward once I know we have a demand signal that this is going to be used and used very quickly.
07:25And so we have reached that point where I'm confident that we need additional capacity beyond what we're already doing down in South Florida.
07:35And so I've been working with Kevin Guthrie to authorize and to stand up a new facility.
07:43And, of course, we were going to initially focus on Camp Blanding.
07:50However, as we started looking around and as Kevin was doing his due diligence, you know, there's a massive part here at Baker Correctional that is vacant, that isn't being used for any state correction activity.
08:09And so you talk about ready-made infrastructure, this was something that was very appealing from that perspective because it would require us to do a lot less in standing up than we would at Blanding and far less than we had to do at Alligator Alcatraz.
08:26Now, Alligator Alcatraz has the runway right there.
08:28That's a one-stop shop.
08:30I don't think you get any more convenient than simply carting people, you know, 2,000 feet away and get them on a plane and then that's it.
08:37But here at Baker Correctional, we're right down the road from Lake City Airport.
08:42And so that is something that is good.
08:45That's something that's going to make a difference.
08:47So I'm here to announce today that we are authorizing and we'll be soon opening this new illegal immigration detention processing and deportation facility here in North Florida.
09:03We are calling this the deportation depot.
09:07It is going to be named, it is going to be located here at Baker Correctional Institute.
09:12And again, the reason of this is not to just house people indefinitely.
09:17We want to process, stage, and then return illegal aliens to their home country.
09:23That is the name of the game.
09:25And that's what we do in Florida.
09:26We know that this is an important national priority, not only of President Trump, but of the American people.
09:33Of all the issues in the election, I can tell you this immigration and border issue was either the top or right near the top on all people's minds.
09:44And so we have identified this location.
09:47It will be able to hold more than 1,300 illegal alien detainees.
09:52You will have the same services that you have at Alligator Alcatraz.
09:56Costs will be reimbursed by our federal partners.
10:00And as I mentioned, Lake City Airport is just right down the road.
10:03It's 15 minutes away.
10:05This is something that the Division of Emergency Management worked very quickly on.
10:10This will be operational soon.
10:14It's not going to take forever, but we're also not rushing to do it right this day.
10:19They're doing what they need to do to get it done in all deliberate speed.
10:23So I'm proud of them for their work.
10:25Florida's making a difference.
10:27This is a priority for the people of our state.
10:30It's a priority for the people of this country.
10:33And I don't want to see any more angel moms in Florida like Kayann who lost a loved one because the laws weren't being enforced.
10:45We have an administration that's committed to doing that in Washington, and no state has done more to support that effort than we have in the state of Florida.
10:55Now, we're going to hear from a number of folks.
10:58One guy I'd like to bring up now, we just had an event in Tampa on Tuesday there at the team house.
11:06A lot of retired Green Berets were there to celebrate the appointment of one of their own as Florida's lieutenant governor.
11:14Florida is now the only state in the country where both the governor and the lieutenant governor are military veterans.
11:21I mean, probably 50, 60 years ago, it would have been hard to find a state that didn't have that.
11:26Times have changed.
11:27But Jay Collins served for 23 years.
11:30He was a Green Beret involved in Special Forces.
11:33He was wounded in action, eventually lost one of his legs, and had the opportunity to retire with a medical discharge or medical retirement.
11:47But he re-upped and served with a prosthetic leg for additional five years as a Green Beret.
11:52That's not something that's normal.
11:54He's also, in his private capacity, been involved in disaster response through his OBR group.
12:04And when we have hurricanes, he's there immediately providing sustenance to displaced residents, first responders, and has been very strong in terms of those operations.
12:14He was a state senator for a number of years and was responsible for really key policies, like our legislation to ban China from purchasing farmland or any land in the state of Florida, supporting the bill that we did in immigration to really hold illegal aliens accountable and help the federal government with deportation.
12:36He's been a strong advocate for veterans, and it's just been an incredibly productive elected official.
12:44And then you have things like the Israel-Iran conflict, the 12-day war, and we had Floridians over there.
12:51And as we do, we step up.
12:54People needed a way out of Israel.
12:56The airport was closed.
12:57There were rockets and ballistic missiles raining down.
13:00And so I authorized, and Kevin Guthrie implemented, rescue missions to be able, and we rescued, I mean, we brought thousands of people out of Israel.
13:10We had many, many hundreds that were brought back on flights that we arranged for them, mostly out of Cyprus.
13:16And that was great, and people really appreciate it.
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