Florida has 600 overdue immigration bills. It just got millions to pay them

The DeSantis administration on Friday submitted a long-delayed report explaining how it’s been spending disaster money, turning in the document less than an hour before lawmakers were set to decide whether the agency should get another $250 million as Florida tries to pay off mounting debt for its state-run immigrant detention centers.

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The Florida Division of Emergency Management, which is involved in immigration enforcement after Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on the issue three years ago, has promised at least $1.4 billion to vendors who built the state’s Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot migrant lockups.

According to the agency’s report — initially due in mid-July — it has racked up 592 unpaid invoices worth $417 million for immigration operations carried out last fiscal year. By the end of this fiscal year, the division projected that the fund will have a “worst-case scenario” $1.5 billion deficit if major storms hit the state.

It did not provide a “best-case” or any other scenario.

However, the amount owed is likely much higher than reported: The agency’s report appears to have been calculated before it quietly committed hundreds of millions more to vendors involved in state-run immigration detention centers.

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Lawmakers got the report about an hour before they were set to vote on appropriating more than $250 million more for disaster response and immigration enforcement efforts at the state’s behest.

“This morning — this very morning — we received the report. So a report due on July 15 came in on Sep. 11,” Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman said during Friday’s joint Legislative Budget Commission meeting. She pointed out that her staff had not had the opportunity to go through the report, accusing the DeSantis administration of “abusing” emergency power.

“There’s just so many problems with the fact that we’re just getting this report two months later. Did we wait two months to vote on this appropriation?” she added.

The commission approved roughly $8 million for National Guard pay to continue staffing and running the Deportation Depot immigration detention center in Baker County, and $187 million for the Division of Emergency Management — the majority of which will go to unpaid bills. The agency also received another $62 million for other emergencies.

While the state still owes millions of dollars for the past year of pop-up immigration detention centers, the report showed little plans for Florida to slow down its emergency spending on immigration. The division set its “conservative projected estimate” for immigration-related spending in the financial year that started in July and runs through mid-2027 at $500 million.

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DeSantis has extended his immigration state of emergency — which permits him to use the state’s disaster dollars on state-run detention and deportation efforts — more than 20 times. If DeSantis doesn’t extend it again, that spending authority would expire next Friday.

What’s in the report?

About 90% of the debts incurred last fiscal year from the emergency fund were for immigration, the report said. This doesn’t account for other, unpaid immigration tabs agreed to during emergency immigration operations carried out in 2023, 2024 and the beginning of 2025.

It also doesn’t account for its ballooned contract totals, which rocketed in value earlier this month to $1.4 billion. The debts listed in the state’s report are lower than the outstanding immigration debts reflected on the state’s transparency portal. It’s not clear when the state pulled the data for the newly released report, since it was due months ago.

The division didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The state reported to the Legislature that its largest outstanding debts are to the portable toilet company Doodie Calls, which is still waiting for $93 million on its more than $219 million in immigration contracts, and IRG Global Emergency Management, which is waiting for $68 million — largely for the now-shuttered Alligator Alcatraz.

Updated contracts reviewed by the Herald/Times, however, show that IRG Global is likely still waiting on even more money: roughly $214 million.

And while the agency provided total costs for all other declared emergencies with unpaid bills, it did not explain how much the immigration operation has cost the state.

The Herald/Times’ independent calculations found that over the past year, the state has spent more than $630 million and still owes $760 million on contracts alone.

These dollars are all coming out of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Fund, a pool created in 2022 allowing DeSantis to quickly pay for disasters without legislative approval.

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Immigration enforcement was the fund’s primary use in 2025.

This story was originally published September 11, 2026 at 2:32 PM.