Governor Ron DeSantis holds roundtable discussions on the necessity of the strongest immigration enforcement legislation possible

Press release from the Office of Governor Ron DeSantis
TITUSVILLE & FORT MYERS, Fla. – Today, Governor Ron DeSantis held a series of roundtable discussions with law enforcement officials and Floridians impacted by illegal immigration to discuss the urgent need for Florida to pass strong legislation to counter the illegal immigration crisis and assist the Trump Administration in border enforcement. Governor DeSantis also presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Florida Highway Patrol—a driving force that has been hard at work on immigration enforcement in Florida—and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division.
Governor DeSantis was joined by Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey, Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Executive Director Dave Kerner, and Angel Wife Nikki Jones. Sheriff Ivey and Director Kerner discussed the failures of the legislature’s recently passed bill to provide support and authority to law enforcement entities currently engaged and equipped to enforce immigration law in Florida.
“The bill the Florida Legislature passed last night fails to honor our promises to voters, fails to meet the moment, and would actually weaken state immigration enforcement,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We must have the strongest law in the nation on immigration enforcement that will guarantee state and local deportation assistance, end catch and release, eliminate magnets such as remittances, and adopt supporting policies that will protect Floridians.”
“The legislature’s bill will stop FHP and FDLE’s efforts to collaborate with local and federal agencies by frustrating communication requests for assistance and instead put roadblocks up that pervert the execution and enforcement of Florida immigration law,” said FLHSMV Executive Director Dave Kerner. “Governor DeSantis understands the role of law enforcement and wants to provide the strongest immigration law possible, empowering law enforcement to get to work and deport illegal aliens residing in the state.”
Earlier this month, Governor DeSantis called a special session of the Florida legislature to address, among other pressing issues, the illegal immigration crisis affecting communities across the state of Florida.
His proposals included:
- Repealing in-state college tuition for illegal immigrant students (passed in 2014)
- Requiring all law enforcement agencies to participate in the 287(g) program, which allows ICE to partner with state and local law enforcement partners to arrest and remove non-citizens who undermine our nation’s safety.
- Expanding the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program, which we used to send aliens to so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions,” to allow for the transportation of illegal aliens outside of the United States.
- Requiring a person registering to vote to affirm that he or she is a United States citizen and legal resident of Florida.
- Requiring a licensee to verify the identity of each sender of a foreign remittance transfer.
- Increasing the crime for an unauthorized alien who falsely swears to an oath or affirmation in connection with or arising out of voting or elections to a felony of the second degree.
- Increasing the crime for an unauthorized alien who willfully submits any false voter registration information to a second-degree felony.
- Making it a state crime for aliens entering the United States illegally, with increasing punishment intervals for repeat offenders.
- Presuming illegal aliens are flight risks and denying them bail.
- Strengthening law enforcement against gangs by expanding the statutory definition of “gangs” to include certain Venezuelan street gangs.
Instead of passing a bill with these critical elements, the legislature passed a weaker bill that effectively guts immigration enforcements in the state of Florida.
Their bill:
- Still fails to address remittances.
- Still fails to create a rebuttal presumption against bail release for illegal aliens in the criminal justice system.
- Still fails to affirmatively require state and local law enforcement to participate in the federal deportation program.
- Still doesn’t allocate enough resources or law enforcement personnel in the state towards deportation efforts.
- Still unconstitutionally removes immigration enforcement authority from the purview of the governor and assigns it to a bureaucracy that has never traditionally been involved in immigration enforcement: the Florida Department of Agriculture.
- Still creates a conflict of interest by having the agricultural commissioner—who represents special interests that traditionally oppose strong immigration enforcement—run enforcement operations.
- Still gives enforcement power to a bureaucracy not capable or equipped to handle it.
- Still fails to make it an enhanced crime for an illegal alien to register to vote.
Governor DeSantis is working toward ending the illegal immigration crisis in the Sunshine State. He has enacted the nation’s strongest E-Verify laws, implemented price transparency to reveal the true economic impact of illegal immigration on social and public services, and has bolstered law enforcement and Florida State Guard units to patrol Florida’s southern waters and sent reinforcements to help secure the Southern Border. As enforcement operations begin to ramp up under President Trump’s leadership, the time for delay is over; the time to act is now. There can be no half-measures.
I hope this site never changes being fan boys for DeSantis.
Zero coverage of his epic slapdown, but we get this PR effort.
Lawyers WANT citizens in prison and cheap labor for their nannies, maids, lawns … 👹💩👺👿🤡
Yeah, this is a stunt to cover the butt whipping Ron took from his own guys in Tally once he became a lame duck.
Problem with press release reporting.
Big sugar is opposed to this and DeSantis. They want cheap labor. I support the Governor.
Big sugar is not the only industry in Florida with a large pool of immigrant employees. You want cheap sugar, produce, housing, and yard work? O you want to pay more?
By the way, given the fact that immigrants here – legal and illegal – commit fewer crimes than native Americans, maybe we should be more concerned with guys coming here from Georgia, Texas, NY, and all those other American places and killing and raping our citizens. They’re not sending their finest.
Evidence please not your nutty comments.
Sure, I’m the only one here who can and does back up my comments with evidence, though this fact is common knowledge among those who know anything about it. We don’t know if Trump is ignorant on this fact or just a liar, since he is both a serially liar and ignorant doofus.
“However, research indicates that immigrants commit less crimes than U.S.-born people.
Much of the available data focuses on incarceration rates because that’s where immigration status is recorded.
Some of the most extensive research comes from Stanford University. Economist Ran Abramitzky found that since the 1960s, immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people.
There is also state level research, that shows similar results: researchers at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, looked into Texas in 2019. They found that undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime.
Beyond incarceration rates, research also shows that there is no correlation between undocumented people and a rise in crime. Recent investigations by The New York Times and The Marshall Project found that between 2007 and 2016, there was no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime in those communities.
The reason for this gap in criminal behavior might have to do with stability and achievement. The Stanford study concludes that first-generation male immigrants traditionally do better than U.S-.born men who didn’t finish high school, which is the group most likely to be incarcerated in the U.S.
The study also suggests that there’s a real fear of getting in trouble and being deported within immigrant communities. Far from engaging in criminal activities, immigrants mostly don’t want to rock the boat….”
https://www.npr.org/2024/03/08/1237103158/immigrants-are-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-us-born-americans-studies-find
Nonsense
Compelling argument east. Can you back that up?
Biden under his four clumsy years had more then 6000 undocumented migrants placed under temporary protection of homeland security. The prices of food still sky rocketed with all those workers in the fields, poultry plants, and beef plants. So your cheap sugar, produce scam response is nonsense. We are already paying more thanks to the Biden/Harris administration.
Dummy, inflation was worldwide from the pandemic and the US came out of it faster and better than most any other country in the world, with a couple of them similar. Look it up.
Money somehow usually makes people do stupid things. Cheap labor is hard to let go of (especially if you have a chicken farm). They should have worked this out before making fools of themselves.
Our auto insurance rates will go down too.
“Requiring a person registering to vote to affirm that he or she is a United States citizen and legal resident of Florida.”
The gov is off his rocker. Trying to take credit for laws already on the book.
From the Florida State Dept , which controls voting, today:
“To be eligible (to vote) you must:
Be a United States citizen
Be a Florida resident
Be 18 years old (you may pre-register to vote if you are 16 years old)
Not now be adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting in Florida or any other state without having the right to vote restored
Not have been convicted of a felony without your civil rights having been restored”
It is ALREADY the effing law and grandstanding Desantis is trying to be a tough guy and claim it is his idea to keep them ebil immigrants from voting. Sick. MAGA sick.
Locals who doubt it can check for themselves:
https://www.myfloridaelections.com/voting-elections/register-to-vote
As long as they come after Keith Perry’s roofing business who employs tons of illegals.
Piece of human waste made animate is not worth ten illegals. Ron the Con is going to drive us into hell bc he can’t get on his knees for his king enough.