Florida Supreme Court approves DeSantis' petition to impanel grand jury on illegal immigration
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez said statewide grand jury will probe human traffickers who've made their way to Florida after illegally crossing the border.
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Núñez applauded Gov. Ron DeSantis' latest effort to combat the Biden administration's "disaster" border policies on Thursday after the state's Supreme Court approved the impaneling of a statewide grand jury focused on immigration and human smuggling.
DeSantis said the grand jury was necessary to"examine international human smuggling networks that bring illegal aliens across the southern border and ultimately to states like Florida." With his request now granted by the court, Núñez said the state will "be able to take the next step investigating the criminal enterprises that are taking hold and child trafficking, human smuggling, drug smuggling.
"All of these things…are impacting not just a border state like Texas, but states like Florida," she said Thursday on "The Story." "This is not just well-intentioned people trying to get folks across the border. These are criminal cartels they have an illicit industry that is far surpassing the arms industry and will likely surpass the drug industry. They don’t treat those individuals fairly. What we’re seeing these individuals have little regard for the safety and well-being and they’re using them as commodities. So in the grand jury and the other pieces that we discussed, we’ll continue to look at ways to not only interdict the human trafficking taking place, but make sure to prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law."
U.S. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 24, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
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The grand jury comes shortly after DeSantis announced the assembly of a new strike force to combat migrant flights illegally smuggling immigrants into Florida, as well as drug smuggling and human trafficking. Nunez said she and the governor are taking aggressive action to "keep Floridians safe."
"The governor has created a strike force to interdict human smuggling that is taking place in Florida, He has the grand jury that will be investigating and looking at what are the things that we can do to protect Floridians and he also made it illegal for common carriers to knowingly work with enterprises that are bringing illegals into Florida," she said.
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Body bags lie at the scene where a tractor trailer with multiple dead bodies was discovered, Monday, June 27, 2022, in San Antonio. ((AP Photo/Eric Gay))
Núñez said DeSantis was forced to take local action after the Biden administration's open border policies created a "humanitarian and national security crisis."
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"Biden’s border disaster has made everyone less safe with historic numbers, record numbers of individuals flowing through our border, enough fentanyl to wipe out the entire population of the United States," she said. "This is a crisis. It’s a humanitarian crisis, it’s a national security crisis, and Governor DeSantis and I will continue to do everything that we can to keep Floridians safe."
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