JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The emergency fund used to bankroll Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot will live to see another day.<\/p>\n
A bill reauthorizing the fund through July 1st, 2028, was one of the last to get approval from the Florida Legislature before the session ended Friday. <\/p>\n
There are a few strings attached, but not as many as some lawmakers had hoped to see.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n The fund was created in 2022 and allows the Governor to pull money out of it to quickly respond to emergencies.<\/p>\n Since Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on immigration in 2023, $575 million from the fund has been spent on immigration enforcement<\/a>, including the construction and operation of Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot.<\/p>\n The Florida House attempted to put major guardrails on the fund this year<\/a>, including a restriction that it only be used to respond to natural emergencies.<\/p>\n But that plan was quickly condemned by Governor DeSantis.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that what you want to see? Illegal aliens released back into the communities? Or do you want to see them removed from the communities?\u201d said DeSantis, speaking at a news conference on February 17th.<\/p>\n In the end, that restriction didn\u2019t make it into the final product, but others did<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fund can no longer be used to purchase vehicles, planes, and boats.<\/p>\n The Governor will also have to seek legislative approval for spending on non-natural emergencies that extend beyond 60 days.<\/p>\n Additionally, if the state ends up receiving the anticipated $608 million federal reimbursement for its immigration enforcement efforts, the money will have to be deposited into a separate account, though the Governor would still have access to those funds.<\/p>\n In the end, State Representative Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) argued the bill doesn\u2019t go nearly far enough.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think this is a blank check similar to what Governor Ron DeSantis has already done,\u201d said Nixon. \u201dHe\u2019s shown and proven that he cannot be a good fiscal steward of our taxpayer dollars, and I am concerned that the next Governor could possibly do the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s still to be decided how much money the legislature puts into the fund, which currently has about $200 million remaining in it.<\/p>\n That decision will be made when lawmakers return to the State Capitol to finalize the state budget in April.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The emergency fund used to bankroll Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot will live to see…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":661782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[29919,48906,257129,5229,33767,117852,3188,723,223902,3153,7310,77156,48916,425,245672,48911,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-661781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news_shack","tag-alligator_alcatraz","tag-alligator_alcatraz_and_deportation_depot","tag-america","tag-angie_nixon","tag-desantis","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida_house","tag-governor","tag-jacksonville","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stowan","tag-local","tag-ron_desantiss","tag-state_representative","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116243953844556590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}