The Republican leaders of the Legislature made some concessions to Gov. Ron DeSantis in the immigration bills announced Monday, but the governor still isn’t getting the hundreds of millions he wanted to deport immigrants with a program under his purview.
Lawmakers are meeting in Tallahassee this week for the third special session of the year aimed at helping President Donald Trump carry out his immigration enforcement plans. The transport program that provided the money DeSantis used to fly immigrants in 2022 from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, still exists in a section of one of the bills.
However, lawmakers want to require the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to specifically request the state’s assistance in transporting immigrants, reimburse the state for the cost, and directly control any operations.
When DeSantis envisioned the special session he called the Legislature into a week after Trump’s inauguration, he wanted a $350 million budget for the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program to deport people. He also wanted to appoint the person in charge of running the program.
Republican Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota and Manatee counties and the sponsor of all the Senate’s proposals for the special session, said the point is to coordinate with the Trump administration.
“[The transport program] was all set up under President Biden. President Biden’s gone. We’re not going to have that issue anymore,” Gruters told reporters Tuesday. “We have these open borders. President Trump has already closed the borders. There’s no need for the political-type events like that anymore, and so it’s completely irrelevant now.”
DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern denied that the bill would remove the governor’s authority to use the transport program.
During the second special session on Jan. 17, Gruters told reporters that the program needed more accountability as lawmakers planned to pass a bill removing the transport program from the governor’s control. The Legislature passed that bill but has not yet sent it to DeSantis, who promised to veto it.
–Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
