Florida’s emergency managers spent $354K in four days on immigration enforcement. (Photo via Florida Division of Emergency Management X account)
Florida’s emergency managers spent more than $354,000 over four days this week to fight illegal immigration, including billings to a custom trailer business, a prison supply company, and a Margaritaville hotel, state spending records show.
The payments — dated between Feb. 10 and Feb. 13 — bring Florida’s immigration spending since August to just over $406 million. The state has spent $573 million in this sphere since 2023.
Officials hope the Trump administration will reimburse it for most of these expenses — which come out of a state taxpayer-funded trust to combat disasters — but federal authorities have been increasingly cagey about how much they’re willing to cover.
Records on the state’s government accountability website show that the Florida Division of Emergency Management has made 44 new payments to 29 different vendors, totaling $354,984.03, this week alone.
These figures include:
- $199,573.75 to Diamondback Manufacturing, a company specializing in custom trailers and window well covers;
- $74,192.81 to the Bob Barker Co., which sells supplies to prisons and jails nationwide;
- $14,207.48 at five hotels — one of which is the Compass by Margaritaville;
- $15,306.5 went for flights;
- $7,012.48 for Avis car rentals — bringing FDEM’s grand total paid to Avis since August to $34,257.
Another $2,240 went to Jamaica Get Away Tours. FDEM’s latest contact with Jamaica came on Nov. 1, when the agency announced its evacuation of 28 Floridians following Hurricane Melissa. Jamaica Get Away Tours offered a special Hurricane Recovery Transport Service during that time.
The payment dates reflect when the transactions were processed, not necessarily when the services took place.
Will the fund continue?
Additional expenses this week included three payments totaling $8,369.81 to Amazon Marketplace; $5,438.07 to Brimar Industries, manufacturer of safety signs and pipe markers; $606 to the Spirit Airlines Charitable Foundation; and $110 at the Compass by Margaritaville.
Those costs added to the $405 million drawn from the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund since August. It was created in 2022 to allow the governor to quickly spend money during declared emergencies without legislative approval.
That included millions on a portable toilet company, hundreds of thousands on Tallahassee-area restaurants, and nearly half a million dollars on a private jet the state says it used to quickly fly staff to and from the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” lockup and to evacuate Americans during the Israel-Hamas war.
The spending has sparked a reckoning both between Florida’s political parties and its legislative chambers.
Democrats have insisted it gives a “blank check” to the governor for a “fake emergency,” deriding some of its more unusual payments as unworthy of taxpayer funds, while the House has remained silent about whether to continue funding the trust.
The EPRF will expire next week if both chambers don’t vote to reauthorize it by Feb. 17, next Tuesday. Although the Senate approved money Wednesday, there’s been no movement in the lower chamber.
FDEM did not respond to requests for comment about the latest spending, but Republican Rep. Alex Andrade — a leading critic of the DeSantis administration — believes the agency has a “reasonable explanation.”
“I hope they don’t stonewall and lie like they did about the theft of $10,000,000 from our Medicaid program,” he told the Phoenix in a text, referencing the controversy over the DeSantis-affiliated Hope Florida charity. “I’m sure they’ll provide a reasonable explanation.”