GOP Rep. Kiyan Michael, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters discussed illegal immigration during a roundtable discussion in Jacksonville on Jan. 23, 2025. (Screenshot DeSantis Facebook)
Gov. Ron DeSantis used the power of his bully pulpit on Thursday to once again lean on the Florida Legislature to come together for a special legislative session next week to further restrict illegal immigration, vowing to fight like a “junkyard dog” that just won’t stop until he sees results.
“These issues — the immigration and election integrity — I’m not letting go,” he said in addressing reporters during a roundtable discussion at the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. “I’m not just going to wait six months for something to eventually stick.”
The governor has said repeatedly over the past couple of weeks that the Legislature must not wait until the regular session opens in March to address the newly implemented executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on reducing the number of the undocumented in Florida.
That’s despite an initial response from Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez that the initiatives would be “premature” and could wait another month.
Although the special session is scheduled to begin Monday, neither Albritton nor Perez has yet to release a schedule of how the week will proceed. DeSantis said Thursday it would be politically “hazardous” for lawmakers to come in and then immediately gavel out without working on any of the changes he is calling for.
“They haven’t said anything,” DeSantis told reporters when asked if he had heard back from the legislative leaders.
“I can tell you the members privately are telling us that they want to get to work — the rank-and-file members. I don’t think that the idea that you would go in and gavel out is sustainable because people would have to go on the record saying that they think that they should gavel out, ignore us. So that would be very, very hazardous, I think, politically for these members to do,” he added. “And I have my constitutional authority to wield in this process and I will continue to wield it as appropriate so that we’re able to get the job done.”
By that measure, the roundtable with a group of officials was an advertisement directed at those lawmakers about why they need to pass legislative reforms next week.
‘Not an issue of humanitarian policy’
“Illegal immigration is not an issue of humanitarian public policy,” said Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles executive director Dave Kerner.
“We understand that it is merely a weapon, an extension of the cartel industrial complex. When someone is here illegally, whether their intent is to assist the cartels or not, they are complicit in it because every dollar, when you talk about remittances, every dollar that is made in the United States and sent to Mexico or other areas where cartels operate, a portion of that is going to fund the operations of the narco-cartels. That’s just a fact.”
Kerner went on to say that the leaders of those drug cartels were paying attention.
“If you think that they’re not watching what’s going on in Florida and how the Legislature is either punting or not going after these cartels, because that’s really what we’re talking about — they are watching that.”
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said the number of undocumented immigrants who came through his jail escalated each year during the Biden administration — 121 in 2021; 280 in 2022; 287 in 2023; and 334 in 2024.
Push back
Groups such as Florida Immigration Coalition (FLIC) and TheDream.US are gearing up to push back next week against the governor’s proposals to empower state and local law enforcement to carry out deportations and eliminate in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants who grew up in Florida.
“We agree that federal immigration policy needs to be addressed. We agree that it’s not good for our whole entire country to have individuals who don’t have status, but we also agree that something needs to be done. This is not it,” TheDream.US President Gaby Pacheco said.
She referred to Republican state Sen. Randy Fine’s proposals to get rid of in-state tuition for students without legal status who attended Florida high schools and to prevent them from enrolling in universities with acceptance rates lower than 85%.
Pacheco’s organization serves as a college and career success program for undocumented immigrant students. In 2023, she brought several students who benefitted from a 2014 state law granting in-state tuition to share their stories at the Capitol as DeSantis unsuccessfully pushed lawmakers to get rid of the program.
An important part of the groups’ advocacy at the state Capitol is sharing personal stories from immigrants, but FLIC’s executive director Tessa Petit told the Florida Phoenix in a phone interview that the group is concerned about bringing undocumented folks to provide public testimony.
“I mean, at this point, people are going to be afraid, right?” she said. “Even ourselves as advocacy groups who used to bring even undocumented folks to the Capitol to come and advocate to these legislators, we will definitely be very hesitant to put their lives at risk, to put their futures at risk.”
DeSantis concluded his press event on Thursday by saying that “there are certain times where you just have to step up and do the right thing.”
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