TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) -- The next time masses of refugees try
                  to come ashore in Florida, the federal government, not the state, will pay to
                  round up the would-be migrants.

                  A deal signed on Monday allows Florida officials to respond more quickly
                  to an immigration emergency, such as the massive 1980 Mariel release of
                  Cubans or the influx of 30,000 Cubans and Haitians in 1994.

                  The state estimates the 1994 refugee influx cost it $50 million; the federal
                  government picked up less than half of that tab.

                   'Florida will no longer have to fend for itself'

                  Gov. Lawton Chiles, who declared a state of emergency during the 1994
                  episode, praised Monday's agreement, under which Washington
                  would provide substantial financial assistance and support under similar
                  circumstances.

                "The federal government will assume full responsibility," he said at a signing
                ceremony in the state capital of Tallahassee. "Florida will no longer have to
                fend for itself during the first several days of the crisis."

                Doris Meissner, commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
                (INS), called it the first arrangement between the federal government and a
               state that provides for a joint response to a mass immigration emergency.

               How it works

               Under the agreement:

                The INS will be the lead agency and may ask for help from Florida --
                but will reimburse the state for its costs.

                The U.S. attorney general would dispatch personnel and resources to
                Florida to cope with mass migration.

                 State law enforcement officers will be empowered to enforce federal
                 immigration law.

                 Screening procedures have been established to carry out medical and
                 criminal background checks, a process that did not exist during earlier
                 mass migrations.

                  "The real objective here is to deter that kind of migration," Meissner said.
                  "The best way to deter is to be ready for it, so it is very clear that we will not
                  find ourselves overwhelmed."

                  Florida in August 1995 became the first state to receive money from the
                  U.S. government's immigration emergency fund, getting $18 million to
                  resettle thousands of Cuban immigrants.

                  The cost of coping with the 1980 dispatch of more than 125,000 Cubans
                  who left from the port of Mariel is believed to have been many times higher.

                  Just last month, more than 400 Haitians tried to come to South Florida after
                  a devastating hurricane made economic conditions throughout the Caribbean
                  even worse.

                  Florida fears more may try to flee and wants to make sure mistakes from the
                  past don't happen again.

                  Correspondent Pat Neal, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed
                                         to this report.