To respond to migrants, Florida sought weapons training for special State Guard unit

A select group of volunteers expected to help Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis intercept migrants at sea gathered at a Panhandle combat training facility this fall for lessons on how to use rifles and pistols, treat “massive hemorrhages” and practice “aerial gunnery.”

The training sessions, authorized this summer following a surge in migrant arrivals by boat to the Keys, mostly from Cuba and Haiti, were for a specialized unit of the Florida State Guard, revived last year by the Florida Legislature. The unit that received the training has the power to make arrests and carry weapons under state law, unlike the majority of State Guard members, who so far have responded to natural disasters.

A $1.2 million purchase order signed in August makes clear the DeSantis administration felt it had an “immediate and emergent need for specially trained personnel” to intercept migrants traveling by boat.

A draft plan of instruction shows the vendor, Stronghold SOF Solutions, offered to recruit, vet and train volunteers at its facility in Defuniak Springs, where a 45-square-mile body of water, vessels for on-the-water training and a Bell 412 helicopter were available to recruits. (The state was responsible for providing the ammo and the weapons.)

The contract was executed without a competitive process, made possible after DeSantis declared a state emergency in January related to illegal immigration.

DeSantis, has described illegal immigration as one of the nation’s biggest problems. He has said on the presidential campaign trail that U.S. Border Patrol agents should be allowed to shoot border crossers“stone-cold dead” if they display “hostile intent.”

“When somebody’s got a backpack on and they’re breaking through the wall, you know that’s hostile intent and you have every right to take action under those circumstances,” DeSantis said in September.

Stronghold SOF Solutions has trained about 60 people so far. But it remains unclear how many, if any, members of the specialized unit have been deployed to the Florida Keys, where the number of migrant landings have dramatically decreased in recent months.

Stronghold SOF Solutions CEO Calvin B. Graves deferred questions about the training to the state.

The governor’s office and the Florida Department of Military Affairs, which oversees the agreement with Stronghold, did not respond to requests seeking comment, including whether volunteers were trained on all the lessons outlined in the Stronghold’s draft training plan.

In its purchase order, the state wrote that the agreement with Stronghold was necessary because the Florida Department of Military Affairs was “unable to adequately address this emergency need” over immigration. The emergency, the state said, required “immediate augmentation of (the) current Florida State Guard with such specially trained personnel.”

Once trained, State Guard members would be expected to intercept “waterborne migrants” by patrolling the ocean by boat and aircraft.