Immigration over the past few years has become a debatable topic, many unable to agree on how to address or fix immigration challenges. Governor Ron DeSantis has become another political figure for drastic immigration policies, in this case unaccompanied migrant children. These children enter the U.S. without their parents or legal guardians but are temporarily housed until they are united with relatives or sponsors.
In mid-December Governor DeSantis, directed Florida childcare regulators to halt issuing and renewing the licenses of facilities that work with the federal government to care for immigrant children. Governor DeSantis, through a letter, informed the federal government that Florida will no longer take part in housing immigrant children that arrive through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, referring to the program as “highly flawed.”
Charles Zelden is a professor in the Department of Humanities and Politics at Nova Southeastern University.He teaches courses in history, government and legal studies, and throughout his career he has been a commentator on politics and current events for media outlets such as CNN and the Miami Herald. Zelden disagrees with the Office of Refugee resettlement to be a “highly flawed” program.
“The job of the program is to resettle refugees; they do a good job at it. The problem is if you don’t want the refugees to come to your particular state, then that’s a flawed program because they are doing what you don’t want,” said Zelden.
Governor DeSantis’ was also condemned for his comments regarding immigrant children. As reported by The Tampa Bay Times, on Jan. 7, at Miami’s American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, DeSantis mentioned that past immigrants were fleeing a communist dictatorship and comparing them to the unaccompanied children arriving now is “disgusting.” A campaign consisting of business leaders has started to run a Spanish-language radio ad referring to the Governor’s speech.
“They are people fleeing a bad situation. Its just the politics of domestic politics. Republicans generally are hard on communism, therefore fleeing communism is a good thing. Fleeing economic disaster is a bad thing. In both cases they are fleeing unlivable conditions and the governor should know the difference. But it’s politics and what he can sell to his constituency. There are people that believe that there are limited justifications for getting special treatment as refugees. The thing he doesn’t understand is that refugees are not getting special treatment. They’re getting treatment as outlined by the law,” said Zelden.
The Department of Children and Families, following DeSantis policy, will no longer issue or renew the licenses of shelters in Florida that care for unaccompanied migrant children unless there is an agreement between the State and Federal government. Leaving shelters unable to complete the necessary paperwork, and unable to care for the children.
