Gov. Ron DeSantis has devised a brilliant plan for shuttling non-citizens out of Florida.
President Trump has closed the borders that were thrown open by the previous president. Invaders finally are being rounded up by the federal government as the law requires and will be deported.
DeSantis proposes using two facilities, an airstrip in South Florida that once was to be the largest airport in the world, built specifically to handle supersonic aircraft, and Camp Blanding, south of Jacksonville in Bradford County.
Camp Blanding has a history suited for this mission. It was used to house German prisoners of war during World War II. Initially, a compound was established in 1942 for German civilians who had been living in Latin America and were interned as enemy aliens.
In November 1943, a larger compound was built to house German soldiers captured in North Africa, specifically those from Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s tank corps.
At its peak, Camp Blanding held about 10,000 German POWs. They lived in barracks, had access to recreational facilities, and were allowed to participate in leisure activities. They were also paid for their labor, which included working in a wood shop.
The POW compound included a jail and a chapel, and the prisoners even put on performances and had an orchestra. Some prisoners were confined to a stockade for breaking rules, and there were infrequent instances of escapes.
Constructed in the early 1970s, Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport was originally to be the Everglades Jetport. The initial runway at the site was planned as the replacement runway for Miami International Airport to serve South Florida, but environmentalists stopped further development on the 24,960-acre property.
The housing facility at the airport 35 miles west of Miami can be placed near the 10,500-foot runway, making it easy to load illegal immigrants onto aircraft that will return them to their own country.
Democrats want the non-citizens illegally in America to remain in the hope they will become Democrat voters, and are trying everything possible to block the deportations. They are raising objections about cost, theoretical impacts on the environment and other specious reasons but none are likely to stop the plan.
Florida is helping the federal government carry out its important mission of protecting the border and is doing it in a very sensible and cost-effective way.
