Biden spent four years turning the southern border into a welcome mat for narco-terrorists, drug smugglers, and child predators.
Now Florida is making them pay for it – one sheriff's office at a time.
Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia stood in Panama City Monday surrounded by Panhandle sheriffs and handed out over $2 million in reimbursement checks – and then said the quiet part out loud.
What Ingoglia Said That Has Democrats Furious
"If you're here illegally, expect your a** to get sent home."
That's not a bumper sticker. That's the official policy of the state of Florida.
Ingoglia distributed $2 million to seven Panhandle law enforcement agencies through the State Board of Immigration Enforcement – the body that funnels resources directly to local agencies partnering with ICE under 287(g) agreements.
Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford walked away with the largest check: $685,956.
https://twitter.com/GovGoneWild/status/2026313312690979259?s=20
Ford has 18 deputies committed full-time to immigration enforcement, and told reporters the reimbursements make a real difference.
"Those operations come at a cost and this reimbursement is very helpful," Ford said. "That's a real cost to our jail."
Walton County received $648,805. Washington County got $77,530, with an additional $552,292 pending Cabinet approval Tuesday.
Marianna Police, Holmes County, Blountstown, and Calhoun County split the remaining funds.
Why This Money Does More Than Pay Deputies
Here's what the media won't tell you about why this matters beyond the dollar amounts.
Ingoglia flagged something in Panama City that should alarm every American: drug cartels are now making more money off human smuggling than drug trafficking.
He's right – and the numbers back it up.
The House Homeland Security Committee confirmed cartels pulled in an estimated $13 billion from human smuggling and trafficking in a single year, up from just $500 million in 2018.
That money finances the same networks pushing fentanyl into your neighborhoods.
Every criminal illegal alien walking free in the Florida Panhandle is a direct subsidy to those cartels.
The 287(g) program flips that equation. Local deputies get federal immigration authority, ICE gets a force multiplier, and the cartels lose safe harbor in American communities.
Florida's results prove it works. Operation Tidal Wave – launched in April 2025 as the largest joint immigration enforcement operation in ICE history – produced over 10,400 arrests statewide.
DeSantis confirmed in January that 63% had prior criminal records, including violent offenders and sex offenders.
Florida now leads the nation with 325 active 287(g) agreements – a 577% increase since Trump took office on January 20, 2025.
The Panhandle Is Part of a Much Bigger Picture
What Ingoglia did Monday in Panama City isn't a one-off press conference.
It's at least the sixth round of similar reimbursements he's presented in the past six months – and it reflects a funding model that changes what's possible for small rural agencies that never had the budget to run immigration operations on their own.
Calhoun County's entire check was $15,071.
Holmes County got $24,892.
For a rural sheriff's office, that's the difference between having deputies available for enforcement operations or not.
Washington County Sheriff Kevin Crews put it plainly: "These funds give us the resources our deputies need to do their job safely and effectively."
That's the point of the 287(g) model – it doesn't just add enforcement capacity in big cities.
It reaches into counties that cartels have long treated as undefended territory because they lacked the resources to push back.
Biden made sure those resources never came.
Trump and DeSantis reversed that.
The math is simple: every dollar Ingoglia hands to a Panhandle sheriff is a dollar narco-terrorists don't get to operate freely.
Florida figured that out.
The rest of America is watching.
Sources:
- Florida Department of Financial Services, "Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia Awards Over $2 Million to Support Florida Law Enforcement Agencies in Immigration Enforcement Efforts," FLDFS.com, February 23, 2026.
- Executive Office of the Governor, "Governor Ron DeSantis Highlights Success of Florida-Federal Immigration Partnership as Operation Tidal Wave Reaches More Than 10,000 Arrests," FlGov.com, January 5, 2026.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "ICE Awards Florida's State and Local Law Enforcement with 287(g) Funds to Defend the Homeland," ICE.gov, September 26, 2025.
- House Committee on Homeland Security, "Chairman Green: Every Dollar the Cartels Rake in Comes at the Cost of an American Life or Livelihood," Homeland.house.gov, July 19, 2023.
- Fox News, "DeSantis Announces Florida Arrested 10,400 Illegal Immigrants in Operation Tidal Wave," FoxNews.com, January 5, 2026.
