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 <<<<\/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: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/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":2,"featured_media":194264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12833,90318,90319,35434,2683,28,34857,6281,116,118,117,55599,10417,634,45479,10418],"class_list":["post-194263","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-angie_nixon","tag-desantis","tag-florida","tag-florida_house","tag-governor","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jake_stan","tag-jake_stowan","tag-local","tag-ron_desantiss","tag-state_representative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}