Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) sharply criticized his state’s legislature, since it seems to be grandstanding and opposing his calling for a special session to help implement President Trump’s agenda, even though the legislature is dominated by Republicans.
“Though the Florida legislature’s leadership initially said the call for a special session on immigration enforcement was ‘premature,’ they have now finally agreed to come in and do their job. I am glad the Legislature’s bill includes many of my proposals, including the long-overdue need to eliminate tuition waivers for illegal immigrant students,” DeSantis said. “But overall, their new bill is substantially weaker than the proposals I outlined and that are necessary to ensure that Florida leads on fulfilling the Trump Administration’s mandate to enforce immigration law and deport illegal aliens.”
The weakened bill from the legislature, DeSantis said, does not “put an enforceable duty on state & local law enforcement to fully cooperate on illegal immigration enforcement,” meaning that “Florida localities will provide no meaningful assistance to federal efforts.”
The weaker bill also “unconstitutionally removes authority to enforce the law from the governor to a lower-level cabinet agency, the Department of Agriculture, that does not oversee state law enforcement and whose stakeholders often oppose enforcement measures,” DeSantis argued.
“By giving enforcement power to the agricultural arm of state government, it ensures that enforcement never actually occurs. In short, it puts the fox in charge of the hen house. This is a unique moment in American history. We are either going to reclaim our sovereignty, uphold the law, and protect our citizens or allow this moment to slip away,” DeSantis said.
The legislature’s bill was a “bait-and-switch” in order to “create the illusion of an illegal immigration crackdown, when it does anything but,” DeSantis said, adding that “[I]t is an insult to name such a weak bill after President Trump, who has been so strong on this issue.”
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