The Massachusetts Senate approved a $55.9 billion state budget proposal for the new fiscal year on Thursday, setting up negotiations with the House on a final spending plan to ship to Democratic Gov. Maura Healey by July.

One focus of the budget is higher education.

The Senate budget would let all Massachusetts students, regardless of immigration status, qualify for in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities — as long as they attended a high school in the state for at least three years, and graduated or obtained a GED.

‘Massachusetts will be competitive so long as people from all over the world can come here to fulfill their dreams,’ Democratic Senate President Karen Spilka said.

The budget would also create a free community college program for nursing students.

One item which failed to be included in the final Senate plan is a proposal to allow online sales of lottery tickets. The budget plan approved by the Massachusetts House would allow the online lottery games.

Healey has also signaled support for the move, citing competition for gambling dollars from online sports betting companies, like Boston-based DraftKings.

The issue will now be hashed out by a six-member House and Senate conference committee charged with drafting a final budget proposal.

Like the Massachusetts House, the Senate’s budget plan would split the anticipated $1 billion in added revenue from the state’s new ‘millionaire’s tax’ between education and transportation initiatives.

Of the $500 million dedicated to transportation, the Senate plan would include $190 million for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority — and another $100 million for roads and bridges.

Unlike the House budget, the Senate decided against including money for universal free school meals in their budget plan. Senate leaders say they hope to take up the issue in a separate supplemental budget.

Both House and Senate budget proposals would funnel money into the state’s ‘rainy day’ fund. The account currently has about $7.1 billion. Both budget plans would bring the total to just over $9 billion.

The House approved its $56.2 billion state budget plan in April. Healey unveiled her budget plan earlier in the year.

The budget debate comes as April tax revenues plummeted more than $2.1 billion below collections from last April and more than $1.4 billion below predictions for the month.

Healey has downplayed the gloomy numbers, saying the state remains in a strong financial position.

The House last month also approved a separate $654 million tax relief package.

The bill is aimed at helping older adults, renters, businesses and wealthier homeowners while rewriting the law that sent about $3 billion back to taxpayers last year.

The House measure would also raise the state’s estate tax threshold from $1 million to $2 million. Healey, who released her own $742 million tax relief package in February, would eliminate the tax for estates valued up to $3 million.

Spilka said the Senate plans to take up the details of its own $575 million tax relief proposal after the budget.

A final compromise budget, approved by both chambers, must be in place by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

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South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban put on hold by judge, offering a temporary relief for providers as the state Supreme Court reviews the law, which reflects a larger trend of restrictive abortion measures across the country since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.The ruling Friday by Judge Clifton Newman came 24 hours after Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill.The new law is similar to a ban on abortion once cardiac activity can be detected that lawmakers passed in 2021.

A judge put South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions around six weeks of pregnancy on hold Friday until the state Supreme Court can review the measure, giving providers a temporary reprieve in a region that has enacted strict limits on the procedure.

Judge Clifton Newman’s ruling that put the state’s abortion law back at roughly 20 weeks came about 24 hours after Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill into law without any notice, which had left dozens of people seeking abortions in limbo and created the potential for a legal abortion becoming illegal as a doctor performed it.

‘It’s extraordinarily difficult not only for the women themselves, but for their doctors — not just the doctors at Planned Parenthood — but hospitals all across the state who need to understand what to do in an emergency,’ said Vicki Ringer, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood in South Carolina.

The developments in South Carolina are a microcosm of what has played out across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade a year ago, allowing states to decide their abortion laws and leaving patients scrambling to find care wherever they can in situations where weeks or even days can make a huge difference.

The South Carolina measure joins stiff limitations pending in North Carolina and Florida, states that had been holdouts in the South providing wider access to the procedure, threatening to further delay abortions as appointments pile up in the region.

The state has seen the number of abortions climb sharply as other Southern states passed near-total bans. Before the overturn of Roe, less than 1 in 10 abortions in South Carolina were performed on people who lived out of state. Now, that figure is near 50% and the number of abortions each month has at least tripled, according to state health data.

The law passed Tuesday by the General Assembly is similar to a ban on abortion once cardiac activity can be detected that lawmakers passed in 2021. The state Supreme Court decided in a 3-2 ruling that the 2021 law violated the state constitution’s right to privacy.

Legislative leaders said the new law makes technical tweaks that should sway at least one justice to change his mind.

But Newman said it wasn’t his role to figure out if that would be successful.

‘The status quo should be maintained until the Supreme Court reviews its decision,’ Newman said. ‘It’s going to end up there.’

Planned Parenthood immediately sued after the law went into effect Thursday, saying South Carolina’s abortion clinics were flooded with canceled appointments from patients further along in their pregnancies and doctors were forced to carefully review the new regulations on the fly.

The abortion rights group said the new law was so similar to the old one that clinics and women seeking treatment would be harmed if it were allowed to stay in effect until a full court review.

Nearly all of the 75 women with appointments for abortions over the next several days appeared to be past six weeks, Planned Parenthood attorney Kathleen McDaniel said.

‘There is irreputable harm. It is happening. It has already happened,’ McDaniel said.

The majority opinion in the South Carolina Supreme Court ruling striking down the 2021 law said that although lawmakers have the authority to protect life, the privacy clause in the state constitution ultimately gives women time to determine whether they want to get an abortion and most women don’t know they are pregnant six weeks after conception.

Justice Kaye Hearn wrote the opinion. She has since had to retire because she turned 72 and was replaced by a man, making the South Carolina’s the only high court in the country without a woman on the bench.

‘I would say that nothing in the law has changed,’ McDaniel said. ‘The only thing that has changed is there is no longer a woman on the Supreme Court.’

The changes in the new law are directed at another justice in the majority, John Few, who wrote his own opinion saying the 2021 law was poorly written because legislators didn’t show it did any work to determine if six weeks was enough time for a woman to know she was pregnant.

Few suggested he would have found an even stricter full ban on abortion constitutional, saying that if a fetus had all the rights of a person, then a ban would be like child abuse or rape laws that don’t violate privacy rights.

Lawyers for the state leaned on the hope Few will change his vote.

‘We would strongly encourage the court to review that decision very carefully, to understand it focuses on one law, the 2021 act,’ state assistant attorney general Thomas Hydrick said. But, he said, the new law is a good faith attempt to correct flaws lawmakers saw in how the justices interpreted the 2021 law.

Newman said that’s outside his role as a lower court judge. ‘Am I being asked to overrule the Supreme Court?’ he asked.

Lawmakers continued to say they are confident they wrote a bill that will stand up to the high court’s scrutiny this time.

‘While I respect Judge Newman’s decision, I remain convinced that the heartbeat bill is constitutional and that the Supreme Court will agree,’ Republican state Senate President Thomas Alexander said in a statement.

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Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed Friday to seek a repeal of President Trump’s signature First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that aimed to reduce recidivism, allowed a pathway for non-violent prisoners to shorten their sentences, and reduced mandatory minimum sentences.

‘Under the Trump administration — he enacted a bill, basically a jailbreak bill, it’s called the First Step Act. It has allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now re-offended, and really, really hurt a number of people,’ DeSantis said in an interview with the Daily Wire. 

‘So one of the things I would want to do as president is go to Congress and seek the repeal of the First Step Act. If you are in jail, you should serve your time. And the idea that they’re releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early, so that they can prey on people in our society is a huge, huge mistake,’ he added.

DeSantis voted for the first version of the bill as a member of the House of Representatives in 2018, the same year he was elected as Florida’s governor, but had resigned before the final, more moderate version of the bill came to a vote in the chamber.

Trump’s campaign responded to DeSantis by pointing to his original vote, and argued he was basically criticizing his own supporters in Congress who also voted for the bill.

‘Lyin’ Ron. He voted for the First Step Act. Would be a shame if there was video of him praising it in an interview with a local FL television station…’ Trump campaign spokesperson Stephen Cheung tweeted following the DeSantis’ interview.

‘DeSantis supporter [Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.] voted for the bill as well. DeSantis is calling out his own Congressional supporters and throwing them under the bus,’ he later added in a separate tweet.

The slight from DeSantis is the latest in a series of ramped up criticism aimed at Trump after facing near constant attacks from the latter in recent weeks.

On Thursday, the governor torched Trump over the COVID-19-related lockdowns of 2020, and for what he described was Trump turning ‘the country over to [Dr. Anthony] Fauci.’ He also said he understood Trump was going after him because ‘he understands I’m the candidate who can beat him.’

Early polls from before DeSantis launched his presidential campaign have consistently shown Trump with a commanding lead over the Republican field with DeSantis in a distant second.

Republican Gov. Kristi Noem opened a hotline for complaints about South Dakota colleges and is calling on the state’s higher education governing board to ban drag shows, she announced Friday.

In a letter to the South Dakota Board of Regents, Noem said states have allowed ‘liberal ideologies to poison their colleges and universities.’

‘On campuses across the country, students have been taught the importance of diversity and equity and given access to ‘safe spaces’ instead of learning to tolerate the disagreement, discomfort, and dissent that they will experience in the real world,’ Noem wrote.

She called on the college oversight board to increase graduation rates, remove references to ‘preferred pronouns’ in school materials, cut administrative costs and ensure universities are not accepting any money from China.

An Associated Press request for comment to the regents was not immediately returned Friday.

Noem pitched the hotline to regents as a way to ‘keep our institutions accountable — and ensure that we are all aware of what is happening at our taxpayer-funded colleges and universities.’ She wrote that information gathered from the hotline will guide policy changes.

‘As I work with our Board of Regents and Board of Technical Education to chart our path for higher education, we are giving students, faculty, and parents this tool to help voice any concerns so that they can be addressed,’ Noem said in a statement.

Republican Tim Rave, a former South Dakota House speaker and Noem appointee, leads the Board of Regents. Noem recently appointed two new members to the board: Jim Lochner, formerly of Tyson Foods, and Doug Morrison, the former Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis director.

On Friday, Noem said she plans to make more appointments soon.

The Board of Regents in December ordered a review of university campus events and its policy on minors attending them after a drag show at South Dakota State University faced criticism from conservative lawmakers for being advertised as family friendly.

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Democrats in Nevada have made last minute changes to a bill intended to crack down on the possession of fentanyl by significantly softening the legislation’s threshold of how much someone could possess that would be considered low-level trafficking.

The amended bill, SB35, was presented to the state legislature by Nevada’s progressive Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford last week, just hours before the deadline for it to pass out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. 

According to Ford, the amendment came as a ‘compromise between the many groups with an interest in this issue,’ and included the drop of the low-level trafficking charge for fentanyl possession from 4 grams to 28 grams.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, 28 grams of fentanyl is enough to kill up to 14,000 people, while 4 grams is enough to kill up to 2,000 people.

A source familiar with the debate over the bill told Fox News Digital that the back and forth between Democrats over the threshold for trafficking charges included concerns over how the state would prosecute fentanyl being mixed with other substances. 

The source added that there was also concern a stricter threshold would be akin to ‘war on drugs’ policies that cracked down on low-level users as harshly as drug traffickers.

The push for the new crime bill comes amid a worsening fentanyl crisis and just a few years after Nevada Democrats, with Ford’s support, passed a 2019 bill that weakened penalties for larger amounts of drug possession, including fentanyl. 

The 2019 bill, AB236, made it possible for a person in possession of fentanyl to only be charged with a misdemeanor unless the amount possessed was at least 100 grams, an amount the DEA says could kill between 300,000 and 500,000 people. Prior to this bill’s passage, the previous low-level trafficking threshold was set at 4 grams, the amount the new bill would have reverted to until Democrats’ last minute changes.

In contrast to Democrats’ push for the softened drug trafficking threshold, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo has called for any possession of fentanyl at all to be classified as a felony offense.

Most voters think artificial intelligence technology will change the way we live in the U.S. in the next few years. Whether that is a good thing or bad remains to be seen.

In the latest Fox News national survey, voters were asked their main reactions — without the aid options — when they think about artificial intelligence. 

Most often, the response was negative, with the top mentions being afraid and dangerous (16%). Others think it is generally a bad idea (11%) or they can’t trust it (8%).

There are positive sentiments as well, albeit in smaller numbers. Voters say AI is innovative (7%), and they are impressed or excited (6%) or cautiously optimistic (5%) about it.

Seven percent say AI confuses them, 6% think of robots, 6% have mixed feelings and 4% feel it needs more research.

Among most demographic groups, the top response is afraid or dangerous, especially for women, Gen Xers and Republicans.  

‘The power of AI and the speed of its development clearly weighs on the minds of many,’ says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democrat Chris Anderson. ‘We’re not quite at the ‘red pill, blue pill’ stage like Neo, but we are worried about where all this is headed.’

In a blog post published Monday, OpenAI leaders wrote, ‘It’s conceivable that, within the next ten years, AI systems will exceed expert skill level in most domains and carry out as much productive activity as one of today’s largest corporations.’

Still, just 4% of voters say AI makes them think it is a threat to jobs.

An overwhelming majority agree artificial intelligence will change the way we live in the U.S., and it’ll be in the next few years (86%).

Forty-three percent feel it will change a lot while another 43% say just some. Twelve percent believe it won’t change much (9%) if at all (3%).

Over half of voters are concerned about artificial intelligence technology (56%), which lands it in 11th place (and tied with climate change) among a list of 15 concerns. Women, nonwhite voters and voters over age 65 are among those most concerned while men, White voters and voters under age 35 are the least worried.

So who is using artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT?

A quarter of voters overall say they have used it, and 74% say they haven’t.

Voters under age 35 (44%), men (30%), Hispanic voters (33%), and Democrats (28%) are more likely than voters over age 65 (9%), women (19%), Black voters (21%), White voters (22%), and Republicans (20%) to have used the technology.

CLICK HERE FOR TOPLINE AND CROSS TABS

Conducted May 19-22, 2023, under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,001 registered voters nationwide randomly selected from a voter file who spoke with live interviewers on landline phones and cellphones. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

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The Dallas Independent School District has apologized for sending grade schoolers home with Winnie the Pooh-themed books on proper conduct during active shooter situations and failing to issue any guidance or warning to parents beforehand.The book, ‘Stay Safe,’ outlines the ‘run, hide, fight’ safety plan in a manner its publisher deems appropriate for young children.‘Recently a booklet was sent home so parents could discuss with their children how to stay safe in such cases,’ the school district said of the controversy. ‘Unfortunately, we did not provide parents any guide or context. We apologize for the confusion and are thankful to parents who reached out to assist us in being better partners.’

Cindy Campos’ 5-year-old son was so excited about the Winnie the Pooh book he got at school that he asked her to read it with him as soon as he got home. But her heart sank when she realized it was a tutorial about what to do when ‘danger is near,’ advising kids to lock the doors, turn off the lights and quietly hide.

As they read the ‘Stay Safe’ book the school sent home without explanation or a warning to parents, she began crying, leaving her son confused.

‘It’s hard because you’re reading them a bedtime story and basically now you have to explain in this cute way what the book is about, when it’s not exactly cute,’ Campos said.

She said her first-grader, who goes to the same elementary school as her pre-K son, also got a copy of the book last week. After posting about it in an online neighborhood group, she found other concerned parents whose kids had also brought the book home.

The district’s decision to send kids home with the book has made waves. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, tweeted: ‘Winnie the Pooh is now teaching Texas kids about active shooters because the elected officials do not have the courage to keep our kids safe and pass common sense gun safety laws.’

It sparked enough of a reaction to warrant an explanation from the Dallas Independent School District, which said in a statement Friday that it works ‘hard every day to prevent school shootings’ by dealing with online threats and improving security measures. It also conducts active shooter drills.

‘Recently a booklet was sent home so parents could discuss with their children how to stay safe in such cases,’ the district said. ‘Unfortunately, we did not provide parents any guide or context. We apologize for the confusion and are thankful to parents who reached out to assist us in being better partners.’

The district did not say how many schools and grades in the district received the books.

Campos said the book was ‘haunting’ her and that it seemed especially ‘tone deaf’ to send it home with kids without explanation around the time the state was marking the anniversary of last year’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, when a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers. It also comes as Texas’ Republican-controlled Legislature wraps up a session in which it rejected virtually all proposals to tighten gun laws but did pass legislation banning school libraries from having books that contain descriptions, illustrations or audio depicting sexual conduct not relevant to the required school curriculum.

Active shooter drills have become common in American schools, though there’s disagreement over whether they do more harm than good.

Campos said that although she doesn’t disagree with the book’s intent, she wished it would have come with a warning to parents so that she could introduce it to her kids at the right time and in the right way. She said she has discussed school shootings with her kids, and that she might have chosen to wait to read them the book until there was another attack.

‘I would have done it on my own time,’ said Campos, who first spoke to the Oak Cliff Advocate.

The book’s cover says: ‘If there is danger, let Winnie the Pooh and his crew show you what to do.’ Inside, it includes passages such as ‘If danger is near, do not fear. Hide like Pooh does until the police appear. Doors should be locked and the passage blocked. Turn off the light to stay out of sight.’

The book was published by Praetorian Consulting, a Houston-based firm that provides safety, security and crisis management training and services. The company, which didn’t respond to messages seeking comment, says on its website that it uses age-appropriate material to teach the concepts of ‘run, hide, fight’ — the approach authorities say civilians should take in active shooter situations.

The company also says on its website that its K-6 curriculum features the characters of Winnie the Pooh, which are now in the public domain and even featured in a recent horror movie.

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EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is calling on the federal government to use artificial intelligence technology to better secure the southwestern border.

During an interview with Fox News Digital, Mace suggested the rapidly advancing technology could be used to enhance border patrol agents’ monitoring capabilities as border officials continue to see a record number of illegal aliens attempting to cross into the U.S. through Mexico.

On one front, she said, AI could help better collect ‘biometrics of everyone that comes across the border, especially when we’re talking about by land and illegally.

‘And if you’re using AI to find their biometrics in a database or multiple databases, I believe it can be done in a much swifter fashion,’ the congresswoman explained. ‘I think that that kind of technology could be used when you’re driving through the border.

‘For example, you don’t have to just stop and take a picture. … Using AI, using the advances in photography and video, AI could actually help identify who those individuals are as well.

‘There’s just a lot of opportunity there to do that, especially with people crossing illegally into our country, when you’re using biometrics and comparing it against a … terrorism watchlist. That’s really important. I think AI can make that those matches happen a lot faster, too,’ Mace added.

Mace said she recently spoke with border officials about how their existing biometrics technology is being used to keep illegal immigration under control and argued that AI’s rapidly advancing technology would be able to build on that.

‘I actually met with border patrol this week and looked at what they’re doing from a biometrics and cyber kind of standpoint as well,’ Mace said. ‘And any border patrol folks that will meet with us and talk to us about technology, we want to have that meeting. We want to talk to them, want to make sure that they have support.’

While conceding that conversation dealt with technology more broadly, Mace added, ‘When you’re talking about technology, AI inevitably is going to have to be involved. If you’re using multiple databases or multiple galleries to search for someone’s biometrics when they’re coming through the border … AI will make that process better, faster.’

However, she also issued a broad warning about the technology’s downsides.

‘We do use AI in different agencies here at the federal level,’ Mace said. ‘There’s some really great opportunity to find abuse and waste and fraud in the federal government. But, at the same time, you know, it can be abused, and that’s where we want to make sure that consumers are protected.’

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. declared he ‘can’t wait’ to join Twitter CEO Elon Musk on the platform just one day after Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a joint event with the latter, announcing he was jumping into the 2024 race for the White House.

Kennedy posted the comment in response to Musk tweeting that ‘all Presidential candidates are most welcome’ on Twitter.

Fox News Digital reached out to Twitter and Kennedy’s campaign to ask whether there were any plans for the two to appear together in a similar format as the DeSantis event, but did not immediately receive responses.

Musk faced intense flak after the Twitter Spaces feature event with DeSantis was mired by repeated technical glitches on Wednesday evening in a black eye for the social media platform. Twitter’s mobile app repeatedly crashed and users complained that they were unable to hear the broadcast.

However, the technical issues appear to have not deterred Kennedy, who previously found an ally in Musk on the issue of Democratic primary debates.

Last month, Musk ripped the Democratic National Committee for choosing not to hold debates between the three declared candidates from the party, essentially coronating President Biden in his bid for re-election.

‘DNC has already announced that it will not allow any debates in 2024 primary. Biden is not to be challenged. Everyone on the Democratic side must shut up and fall in line. Not having debates is undemocratic and ridiculous. No progressive should agree to this kind of power grab,’ Musk tweeted.

Aside from Biden, Kennedy is also facing author Marianne Williamson in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Fox News’ Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.

As Texas continues to grapple with an ongoing crisis at the southern border, now into its third year, Republican-led states are stepping up by sending troops, law enforcement and other resources to help secure the southern border.

This week both Tennessee and Nebraska announced they would be sending personnel to the border, joining Mississippi and Florida in doing so. Tennessee announced a deployment of 100 National Guard members, while Nebraska announced the deployment of 10 state troopers.

‘America continues to face an unprecedented border crisis that threatens our nation’s security and the safety of Tennesseans,’ Tenn. Gov. Bill Lee said in a statement on Wednesday. ‘The federal government owes Americans a plan to secure our country, and in the meantime, states continue to answer this important call to service. I am again authorizing the Tennessee National Guard to help secure the Southern border, and I commend these troops for providing critical support.’ 

‘Our nation has a serious and unchecked threat on its hands following President Biden’s decision to end Title 42,’ Nebraska Gov. Jim Phillen said. ‘Nebraska is committed to using every tool in its tool box to help stop the influx of illegal immigration at our southern border. Illegal immigration hurts our nation’s security, undermines the rule of law, and threatens the wellbeing of our state.’

Texas has been on the front lines of the crisis since it began in the early months of 2021. While the causes are widely debated — with Republicans blaming the Biden administration’s policies and the administration blaming Republicans for failing to provide funding and immigration reform — the numbers have been enormous.

There were more than 1.7 million migrant encounters in FY 2021, and more than 2.3 million in FY22. There have so far been over 1.4 million migrant encounters in FY 23 recorded until the end of April, with five months still left of the fiscal year.

Texas has surged resources to the border with Operation Lone Star, while the Biden administration has also touted its own resources it has sent to the border, including at the ports of entry and extra processing power. But now states with Republican governors are mobilizing, particularly as the Title 42 public health order has ended — which allowed for the rapid removal of migrants at the border due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had announced last week that his state was deploying resources to aid Texas.

The governor’s office said Florida has more than 1,100 assets and resources available to assist, including 101 Highway Patrol personnel, 200 Department of Law Enforcement officers, 800 National Guard soldiers, emergency management personnel, 17 unmanned drones and 10 vessels, including airboats.

‘The impacts of Biden’s Border Crisis are felt by communities across the nation, and the federal government’s abdication of duty undermines the sovereignty of our country and the rule of law,’ DeSantis said in a statement.

‘At my direction, state agencies including law enforcement and the Florida National Guard are being deployed to Texas, with assets including personnel, boats and planes. While Biden ignores the crisis he created, Florida stands ready to help Texas respond to this crisis,’ he said.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Chris Olivarez wrote in response, ‘We welcome the support from the state of Florida as they will provide additional law enforcement resources to help combat criminal activity & interdict deadly narcotics.’

A day later, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said this state is mobilizing National Guard troops to help secure the border.

‘What happens at the border doesn’t stay there. Drugs and people are trafficked to every state in the nation – including Mississippi,’ Reeves said. ‘To keep Mississippians safe and limit the impact of our nation’s open borders, the Mississippi National Guard’s 112th Military Police Battalion has been mobilized and is supporting Customs and Border Protection officers and agents along the Southwest border.’

The Biden administration has been cautious about such efforts, with officials recently suggesting that the move by Florida was politically motivated.

‘Outstanding coordination is taking place at the local level each and every day. We have seen, however, at times that Gov. DeSantis and [Texas Gov. Greg Abbott] take actions that are being done really for purely political reasons and that do not involve the kind of coordination that we really need to see at the border,’ Department of Homeland Security official Blas Nunez-Neto told reporters last week.

‘We are confident in our men and women on the front lines, ability to conduct their border operations in a safe, humane and secure manner. And we again call on the governors to make sure that any steps they take are done in coordination with our federal personnel,’ he said.

Meanwhile, numbers have plummeted at the border compared to the highs seen in the days leading up to the end of Title 42, when agents encountered over 10,000 migrants a day. Numbers have since dropped to an average of around 3,000 a day, officials said last week.