Corruption by Any Other Name (Part I)

“Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.” – Margaret Atwood 

Republicans have long held a stranglehold on the political levers of power in Florida. Yet, in one of the surest signs of hubris, the longer they’ve controlled the direction of state politics, the more they’ve demonstrated the belief that only they have the prudence, political instincts, or sagacity to properly run the state.

In almost three decades of one-party rule, Florida has become a swamp where haughty men and women strut in costumes of arrogance and condescension, foisting partisan political beliefs on the majority; stuffing their pockets and those of their wealthy, connected friends; and protecting the well-heeled while disregarding the will of the people.

“The effects of decades of Republican rule in Florida — accelerated by a legislative supermajority under Governor Ron DeSantis — have transformed the state into a national laboratory for conservative governance, the Hill reports. “This approach has led to starkly polarized outcomes, marked by significant economic and population growth on one side, and intense legal, cultural, and educational battles on the other.”

And Florida is the worse for it.

DeSantis is the tip of the spear. He has run roughshod over anyone standing in his way — using political muscle to force unpopular conservative policies into law while trying to intimidate those who oppose or criticize him. He has targeted educators, activists, labor unions, political and corporate leaders, young people, Democrats, civil and human rights advocates, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. DeSantis has not been above using cops, the courts, and compliant state employees to achieve his ends.

The governor — now at the tail end of his second term — has glorified culture wars, injecting a toxic stew of anger, resentment, and anti-immigrant bias into the political discourse. He has tried to upend as much of the state’s political infrastructure as possible and reshape it into what he hopes becomes a permanent far-right footprint.

At a time when Floridians are being hammered by inflation — driven in large part by the unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran — runaway rents, and crushing insurance costs, if you can get any, DeSantis and his administration have been on a taxpayer-supported spending spree. They have been appallingly cavalier with taxpayers’ money.

While trying to project himself as the nation’s immigrant crusader, DeSantis has squandered more than $1 billion dollars on immigration detention camps he set up in Florida.

A recent Miami Herald investigation estimates that he misused more than $990 million on these facilities, guiding taxpayers’ dollars to between 55 and 83 companies owned or operated by his political allies, friends, and donors.

Checks and balances 

Over the course of a year, DeSantis used the state’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund — intended to support natural disaster relief — to pay for his anti-immigrant operation. He circumvented regular channels, ignored or removed checks and balances, and awarded contracts in a no-bid process. Since 2023, DeSantis waived  more than 24 state laws and regulations and extended a 60-day emergency to justify access to the emergency fund more than 20 times.

All to pave the way to erect “Alligator Alcatraz,” the detention camp in the Everglades on land sacred to the Miccosukee Tribe. Critics are deeply concerned that there has been no accountability to the Legislature or the public.

Following a tour of the Everglades facility, Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost called it a project to “funnel our taxpayer money to corporations,” labelling the over-the-top immigration expenses as an “almost criminal use” of tax dollars while Floridians “struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and insurance.”

Jeff Brandes agreed. “State leaders are “going to spin it as a success, of course, but it’s all spin. Nobody can say that taxpayer money was well spent,” said Brandes, a former Republican state lawmaker who now leads the nonpartisan Florida Policy Project.

The Miami Herald found that the state signed off on $210 million to three companies affiliated with the Miami-based CDR Cos., whose executives, Carlos Duart and Tina Vidal-Duart, are DeSantis allies and donors to his failed presidential bid. Duart is a DeSantis appointee to Florida International University’s Board of Trustees and Vidal-Duart is a former board member of the Hope Florida Foundation, the embattled charity created in support of Casey DeSantis’ anti-welfare initiative.

Most of the money directed to CDR were for medical facilities and “site prep” at Alligator Alcatraz, according to contracts. Another $100 million was to a new joint venture CDR formed with the private prison company GEO Group late last year to provide staffing for “Deportation Depot,” in Baker County. Other contracts for the sites include $112 million to IRG Global Management, $83 million to Garner Environmental Services, and $79 million to GardaWorld, a company that donated $5,000 to a political committee backing DeSantis’ presidential run.

None of these dozens of contracts were negotiated through a competitive bidding process to ensure the state was getting the best deal.

‘Necessity’

DeSantis has argued that the state-run detention centers were crucial to carrying out Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.

“I’m doing it out of necessity. I’m not doing it because I just think we should just do it for a press release. We had nowhere else to put these folks. [The Department of Homeland Security] did not have any place to put them. Now they’ve had [a] place to put them and that’s been very, very positive.”

But some experts say the cost of DeSantis’ detention project is much higher than the federally operated immigration detention facilities, and largely on Florida taxpayers’ dime.

Emergency managers told FEMA that it would take $1.7 billion — enough to give every teacher in Florida a $6,000 bonus — to operate both facilities. Since 2022, the Legislature has injected $4.8 billion into the emergency fund. Now the fund’s coffers have dwindled to $6.9 million. During the last legislative session, Republicans allowed the legislature to add an extra $250 million into the account this fiscal year.

The Phoenix reports that, in total, about $405 million was spent on immigration through the first half of the year alone — considerably more than in previous years, when the total was $49 million. Most of the money went to private contractors through 83 contracts, including multimillion-dollar deals with companies providing toilets, emergency management, and environmental services.

Records show that emergency staff working around the clock spent at least $166,000 on food at more than 50 restaurants and nearly $717,000 on travel, including private jets and hotel stays. Officials say the food was for emergency staff and one expensive jet flight was described as rescuing Floridians in Israel. In addition, DeSantis and the state used the emergency fund to shell out more than $1.7 million to outside law firms fighting lawsuits over environmental rules and detainees’ rights at immigration facilities. If the feds opt not to reimburse Florida, taxpayers will likely be stuck with the bill.

Democratic Senate Leader Lori Berman of Boca Raton offered a proposal to restrict how much the governor’s agencies could pull from the trust but it failed along party lines, the Phoenix’s Liv Caputo reports. “The amendment said that if the governor wants to repeatedly call for the use of emergency funds for anything other than a natural disaster, the Legislature’s joint budget commission would have to approve it. That’s a House-Senate panel that reviews interim spending requests,” Caputo wrote.

“I support the right of the governor to use emergency trust fund dollars to protect our state from hurricanes, natural disasters, and real emergencies,” Democratic Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith of Orlando said. “But that’s not what we have seen. We don’t have the appropriate guardrails on the emergency trust fund. And as a result, the spending has been off the rails.”

As long as Republicans control supermajorities in both legislative chambers, they can ignore calls for accountability and moderation. DeSantis and allied lawmakers and have swatted away every attempt by Democrats to erect guardrails.

Power has gone to the heads of MAGA Republicans in Florida, who have completely embraced Florida’s flirtation with tyranny. DeSantis’ behavior signals America’s descent into a hellish existence. There is no fig leaf, no pretense of civil liberties or due process. Alligator Alcatraz is closing, but detentions camps aren’t going away. They are a national multi-billion enterprise targeting Black and brown people.

For now.

Human costs

DeSantis has never cared about the human cost as detailed by detainees and immigration advocates: the chain link cages, lack of air conditioning, abysmal physical conditions, worms in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, floors flooded with fecal waste, mosquitoes and other insects everywhere.

What is even more infuriating is that after the devastating harm inflicted on largely innocent immigrants, DeSantis announced on June 25 that the administration was closing down the facility because it “had served its purpose.” He claims that the detention center, opened in July 2025, was always only meant to be temporary).

Now, undocumented immigrants and the occasional citizen will be kidnapped by the state and deposited in one of the vast network of detention centers that the Department of Homeland Security and ICE are setting up.

God help us all.