Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a new statewide program to track illegal immigration during the press conference, which brought together the American Business Immigration Coalition, the IMPAC Fund, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and the Venezuelan American Alliance.

DeSantis spoke about the implementation of a new immigration law on February 7th, at the “American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora” in Miami, joined by several individuals who have benefited from “Operation Peter Pan”, a joint initiative between the Catholic Church and the government in the early 1960s, which transported more than 14,000 unaccompanied minors from Cuba to the United States. The program accommodated children across the country in foster homes and orphanages until they could be reunited with their parents when they left Cuba, which was often years later.

At the time, DeSantis said that any comparison between unaccompanied children who arrive in the United States today with those of yore who came through “Operation Pedro Pan” was “disgusting”. He said that the flight of children from a communist dictatorship cannot be compared to the children who arrive illegally in the country today.

Many high-profile religious, business, and community leaders have denounced the Republican governor for his support of immigration measures that could harm not only refugee children, but the economy of the state of Florida.

As he intensifies his fight against proposals over the Biden administration's immigration policy, DeSantis has questioned whether unaccompanied immigrant children should stay in shelters in Florida until they can be reunited with their parents or other relatives. 

According to NBC News, “In December, DeSantis ordered state regulators not to issue licenses to federally funded shelters that house unaccompanied migrant children. Two bills being considered would also bar the state from doing business with companies that transport undocumented migrants into the state”.

“Several Cuban Americans who spoke at the news conference came to the U.S. over 50 years ago as unaccompanied children in the early 1960s through Operation Pedro Pan, in which the U.S. government brought thousands of children from Cuba to the U.S. after Fidel Castro took over the country and installed a communist government. It was during the Cold War, and many parents fearing communist indoctrination sent their kids off”, according to the publication.

The account of business, community and religious leaders, who arrived in the country as an unaccompanied immigrant by Operation Pedro Pan, argued that many of the children who arrive in the country without documents are fleeing life-threatening conditions, including violence provoked by civilians’ wars or criminal organizations, as well as natural disasters.

The Archbishop of Miami commented on the governor's proposal with the adhesion of those who joined him at the meeting held earlier this month: “The lack of solidarity of this group of former unaccompanied minors from Cuba with similarly situated children today was disappointing”.

Business and community leader Tony Argiz, who arrived in the country at the age of 9 through “Operation Pedro Pan, and other community leaders paid attention to the negative impact of the anti-immigrant law on the state's economic base. According to the NBC News publication, Argiz stated: “We must support the immigrant communities that have really powered our economy in Florida [that] has been powered by the immigration that this country has had”.