One of Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) top deputies said he left a visit to the Texas border in disbelief after seeing the illegal immigration and drug smuggling crises with his own eyes.
Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, a Cabinet member in the DeSantis administration who oversees finances for the deployment of state military and law enforcement personnel to the border, described being stunned by how brazenly Mexican cartel smugglers moved immigrants and drugs.
“One of the things that was … just so horrifying to me was the numbers when it came to human trafficking and drugs,” Patronis said in a phone call Wednesday. “I had no idea how much was coming across the border that had been seized in drugs through this effort of managing and working the border.”
“It just breaks my heart that there’s just such a blindness at a federal level to what’s taking place there,” Patronis added.
Florida has made 1,000 National Guard soldiers available and deployed 90 law enforcement officers who are working on the front lines, in the sky, and on the roads to assist federal, state, and local authorities under Texas’s Operation Lone Star.
The Texas border security initiative began in 2021. In that time, the state, with the help of outside state police and military, has apprehended half a million people who illegally entered from Mexico and evaded federal Border Patrol agents.
The state operation has also resulted in the seizure of 469 million lethal doses of fentanyl, all of which made it past federal customs and border police.
Florida was the first state in 2021 to send officers from a dozen departments statewide to help their counterparts in Texas following a nationwide request for help from Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX). Several other states joined in 2021 but later pulled their personnel.
In 2023, Abbott requested outside help again, and Florida responded, along with 25 other states.
“The governor has taken some hits on this,” Patronis said. “I think it’s important to let them know that I’m proud to sign the check to fund those operations.”
Patronis visited the border town of Eagle Pass, which has been the epicenter of the border crisis over the past three years. In a single day last December, law enforcement in the town would arrest more than 2,000 illegal immigrants.
The Abbott administration has further reinforced the riverbanks in Eagle Pass with layers of concertina wire, a 1,000-foot buoy in the Rio Grande, and cargo containers to deter immigrants from wading across.
In recent months, illegal crossings into Eagle Pass have dwindled to dozens of arrests per day as migrants and smugglers choose to move across states that are easier to breach, including Arizona, California, and New Mexico.
“In the case of Eagle Pass, there was thousands every day that were crossing right there. So now, there is a very significant force presence there at Eagle Pass,” Patronis said. “In some days, less than 100 a day will try to cross, so now what’s happening is they’ve moved — those human traffickers, those players in that space. It’s obvious Eagle Pass is not a place [where] they can take [migrants] to cross anymore.”
The success that Texas has had is one reason that morale among the 25 Florida personnel whom Patronis met with was “excellent,” he said. All Florida personnel working on the Texas border are volunteers and not required to deploy for the 14-day relocation, unlike Texas soldiers.
“Florida — we’re still standing firm with our support of Texas. Texas has been good to us when it’s come time for our natural disasters, pushing out resources, dealing with hurricanes,” Patronis said. “This is us repaying the favor, but also hopefully putting a kibosh on as much as we can of allowing any of these illegals to come into the state of Florida.”
Patronis said he wanted to see if the deployment was having a significant impact on border security and how state employees were feeling. He went out with state police by helicopter and on airboat to get a comprehensive look at how both states were managing the situation.
“I couldn’t get over this. One FWC officer, that’s Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, that was his seventh visit,” he said.
The backup from Florida and other states also communicates to the thousands of Texas state police and soldiers deployed to the border that they have not been forgotten outside of Texas and “gives them motivation to continue to move forward,” Patronis said.
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DeSantis visited Eagle Pass while a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination last year.
Most recently, former President Donald Trump visited Eagle Pass in March and met with Abbott to see how the state had responded to the border crisis.
