Governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday that he is looking to enact legislation that would give law enforcement officers $5,000 bonuses to relocate to Florida and avoid vaccine mandates.
DeSantis announced that they are "actively" working on the plan during an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartitomo.
“We're actually actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement, because we do have needs in our police and our sheriff's departments. So, in the next legislative session, I'm going to hopefully sign legislation that gives a $5,000 bonus to any out-of-state law enforcement that relocates in Florida,” DeSantis said.
The Florida governor specifically named cities with vaccine mandates and asserted that the officers will be treated better in his state.
“So, NYPD, Minneapolis, Seattle, if you're not being treated well, we will treat you better here. You can fill important needs for us, and we will compensate you as a result,” he added.
DeSantis added that vaccine mandates are "unconstitutional."
“And so, in Florida, our policy is very clear. We're going to have a special session, and we're going to say, nobody should lose their job based off these injections. It's a choice you can make. But we want to make sure we're protecting your jobs and your livelihoods,” DeSantis said.
The governor added that many first responders already had COVID and are making their decisions about vaccines with that in mind.
“And so I think that influences their decision on a lot of this, that they have already had it and recovered. And so they're making no accommodations for that. They're still pretending like that doesn't even exist. And so that's really, really troubling when you see that,” DeSantis added.
