Is that a puzzled look on Kevin Guthrie’s face? The state emergency management director was with Gov. Ron DeSantis in Flagler Beach in October 2022. (© FlaglerLive)The DeSantis administration spent nearly two-thirds of Florida’s emergency fund last fiscal year on fighting illegal immigration, dwarfing spending for severe weather, international rescues, and other emergency missions for which the fund was created.
State records show that the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency in charge of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” lockups, shelled out $890 million in taxpayer dollars between July 1, 2025, and June 30, 2026.
Of that, $564 million — about 63% — went to immigration enforcement, meaning emergency managers spent more on immigration than all emergency missions combined last year.
The rest paid for assistance to counties and other states, costs associated with rescuing Americans from Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, and severe weather — including snow in the Panhandle, storms in Northwest Florida, and heavy October rainfall.
The spending represents a significant shift in the purpose of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, a trust created in 2022 to allow Gov. Ron DeSantis to quickly pay for disasters like hurricanes, floods, and more without legislative approval.
But in 2023, the trust became a financing vehicle for one of DeSantis’ top priorities: immigration. Gearing up for a presidential run and enjoying an iron grip over the GOP Legislature, DeSantis declared a state of emergency on immigration — one that he’s renewed at least 20 times since.
This opened the fund’s dollars to immigration enforcement, allowing FDEM to spent $573 million out of it since 2023 — 98% of which was paid for in the past year. This is largely because of the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot,” facilities, state-run detention centers erected last summer, lauded by President Trump, and mirrored by Republican states nationwide.
But these costs represent just a fraction of the total to be spent on immigration. As the Phoenix previously reported, immigration contracts signed by FDEM are valued at roughly $1.01 billion. This doesn’t include isolated immigration costs like food, supplies, or travel.
FDEM still owes the vendors that built and ran the facilities at least another half a billion dollars.
Despite those outstanding costs, the fund has under $7 million left. Lawmakers approved another $250 million for the trust in June, but FDEM hasn’t asked for the money yet.
The agency also missed the deadline for a new quarterly report detailing the fund’s health and cash projections, a requirement lawmakers added this year. Representatives of the Senate president and House speaker told the Phoenix they had not received the report, which was due five days ago. FDEM did not respond to questions about when it would submit the information.
Immigration spending from the fund last fiscal year exceeded the individual costs of several past emergency responses, including Hurricane Idalia, Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Nicole, and evacuation flights for Americans from Israel and Haiti.
The estimated $1.01 billion in immigration-related contracts, meanwhile, would rank as the third-largest use of the trust since its creation, behind only Hurricane Ian ($2.5 billion) and Hurricane Milton ($1.5 billion).
–Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix
Laurel says
But there’s not enough money for school lunches, SNAP, Meals on Wheels, Social Security (we, and our employers, paid into for decades), Medicare (we paid into for decades), and Medicaid. You know, those socialist programs for Americans. Thanks, to the Party of Fiscal Responsibility. “America First!”
To DeSantis, and fans, this gross amount of money is well spent on getting rid of the people who build our homes, pick our food, care for our children and us in our homes, clean our homes and provide services when we go on vacation.
And this idiot wants to run for President.
How about a war? One that was not an obnoxious expense until Trump started it. More to come. He’s bankrupting the world, and us to boot. Watch your gas tank. Enjoy your $14 bag of crap coffee. Make America Great Again…for the 1%.
And just will us Americans First have left? Rainbows and unicorns? Or will we be “suckers and losers”?
Courtney says
But I was told that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility…insert clown emoji here. Republicans have been the source of every recession, every forever war. They are the reason why we, the people who pay taxes, are in danger of having Social Security become insolvent. They are the reason why we are 39.5 TRILLION dollars in debt. They should be punching themselves in the face as real estate values slump and work slows as all of the workers who farm, build homes, and offices are deported for the crime of working to provide for their families while providing a service to us. Immigration benefits our country and anyone who says otherwise is just trying to incite hate to get you to look the other way while they rob you blind.
Florida was a great place to live when it was a purple state – both parties working together to keep Florida beautiful. Remember when we could actually afford to live here? Those were the days! Many of the reasons why we have some of the nice things we have is because of the contributions of Democrats. The only reason we can vote by mail is because a democratic governor made it so. We were not wasting billions of our emergency management funds on immigration so that a mediocre man could improve his resume as he runs for president.
I implore my fellow Floridians, the people who can remember how Florida used to be, the people who are tired of this constant drama, to look past their partisan instincts and look at the hate and divide the current leadership has wrought on this state and country, and vote for the ones who cherish Florida and Floridians – not the pretenders…the ones who only care about money and power.
I for one, am over all of this shit.
Deborah Coffey says
Ron DeSantis is a despicable human being and everything he does is vomitous, Why doesn’t Antifa have a real organization with a leader and lots of money? We need to stop these Fascists in their ugly tracks.