Speaking at an event at New College in Florida on Thursday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spoke about the initiatives his administration undertook to remove 'incentives' for illegal immigration.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I think what we've been reading and hearing from the administration is also striking amazing partnerships
00:07With the state and local governments, but if you go from California to Florida across the southern border
00:14Governor you can start. I mean you've passed immediately upon
00:18Called two special sessions to pass
00:21broad-ranging
00:22immigration reform
00:24But I don't know if any of the other states have done it walk us through
00:28The reforms that Florida's passed and what needs to be done in the other states
00:32Well, we've barely been focused on this since I first became governor my first year as governor, Florida
00:38We finally banned sanctuary cities and it was something that they had not been willing to do part of it was political
00:45They thought well, you know, you're not going to be able to win Latino votes if you ban sanctuary cities, it was just the opposite
00:51We had a higher approval of that policy amongst Hispanics and Floridians and any other subgroup to ban the sanctuary cities
01:00So we did that in 2023. We did a series of reforms
01:05involving employment
01:07Verification we did things to to hold illegal aliens
01:11Accountable we made sure no, so we've never done drivers licenses or allowed that but these counties wanted to issue these ID
01:18We said you're not allowed to do that
01:20Private organizations aren't allowed to do I mean we basically want to remove incentives for people to come illegally
01:27And so we did a lot over a number of years
01:30but with the election of President Trump that provided a great opportunity for us to be really really
01:38Significant factor in the enforcement of immigration laws in the interior of our country
01:43I mean we had been doing things like the maritime patrols member a year ago
01:48They said all the Haitians were gonna come in because of the instability
01:52Well, we put all our assets there with the Coast Guard and we just the Florida interdictions have been almost
01:5818,000 illegal aliens captured at sea and repatriated
02:02Over the last year and a half and now we're much better shape with President Trump putting more resources in we did the transport
02:10Program to places like Martha's Vineyard, which you know
02:13Was a big deal
02:16But
02:18It was
02:19It was interesting because that kind of goes in what what Tom and Chad are talking about about TDA
02:25the Venezuelan gangs most of the people on the first that first flight to Martha's Vineyard were Venezuelans and
02:34The media tried to say oh and I was running for re-election time. They go down to Miami
02:39They find these and they're like, oh it's gonna be so bad. He may the governor made a huge mistake
02:44Venezuelans are gonna be mad at him and all this and I didn't really believe it
02:47But you know, you don't know right?
02:48And so I remember the next time I was in Doral like a week later
02:52Had like a group of these guys come up to me governor go. I met some like cafe
02:57And they all just start like hugging me and back slapping me like we're Venezuelans. Thanks what you did because they said that that that
03:05Maduro was sending a lot of bad people
03:08President Trump's made this point and so they saw what was coming in and they knew that that was not good for the country
03:14So we did that we did all that but I knew we had to act quickly
03:18So I called the special session of the legislature to take place a week after the president took office
03:24I knew he was going to issue a series of executive orders and we wanted to be able to capitalize on that. So
03:31Ice does not have enough personnel Border Patrol does not have enough personnel and resources
03:37To do what needs to be done. So we just say it's their responsibility
03:41We're just not going to get the job done. Like you have to supplement with state and local now
03:45They're gonna build up but under Biden all this stuff withered because that's not what they believe them
03:51We have programs in federal law where state and local could be deputized
03:58To exercise immigration enforcement authority
04:01So under Biden our Highway Patrol, you could have an illegal alien driving drunk putting people at risk even running people over
04:08They don't have a license. They're not here legally our guys. They could call ice and say hey
04:14Will you pick this guy up but Biden's people weren't picking hooking them up?
04:17So they had to just release them, you know now they can say no you're detained on immigration as well
04:23And that whole process goes they're detained. We don't want catch and release. We want to attain and deport
04:28So under this 287 G
04:31We've said all
04:34Jurisdictions in Florida must assist with immigration enforcement
04:38So we have 67 counties all 67 sheriffs have signed agreements with ice
04:43Those are not all conservative sheriffs by the way in Republican areas
04:47But we impose the legal duty on them to do it same thing at the municipal level
04:52We're now working through getting police departments to do agreements
04:56And if ice doesn't want to do an agreement with one and we're not then obviously but if ice wants to help them
05:00We're gonna do it
05:01You saw this thing or the City Council's fighting the mayor and the and the police chief about whether Fort Myers PD
05:10Should be involved in it and it's not a policy question at this point or whether they should be involved in it under our law
05:16They must be involved in it and that will happen one way or another and we will get that done. So
05:23So
05:26We're the only state that called the special session
05:30to combat illegal immigration
05:32We're the only state that's imposed an enforceable duty on all local and see the state it didn't really matter
05:40I didn't need to impose a duty because I immediately told all the state agencies sign up and let's be part of the solution
05:46We want to be on the team
05:47But the locals and like look even some conservative generally conservative folks there some of them are just like look
05:54It's not our problem, you know, let let the feds handle it whatever and it's not that they're gonna sabotage it
06:00They just don't want they want to focus on other things, but that's not gonna work. And what happens is is illegal immigration?
06:06Yes, you have gangs. They're just got a rougher Russia
06:10Mafia enforcer they they picked up we put out some stuff on that
06:14Some stuff with one of the Latin Kings Grammy, so there's you see all that for sure
06:18But just the sheer number of people we have almost a million people in the United States that are under final deportation
06:25Orders including tens of thousands in in Florida. Why aren't they being removed?
06:30Why aren't we enforcing the law? But what happens is you cause a lot of stress on social services schools?
06:38Emergency room Florida spent 600 million last year an emergency room for people here illegally
06:44But the law says you have to treat so it's not like there's there's discretion. So you do that that has a huge cost
06:50So this is a big problem that affects all
06:53Aspects of the community public safety or whatnot and the answer of just saying we want to sit on our hands that doesn't cut it
07:00So we we leaned in on it. We got it done. And now if these local
07:05Governments are not being part of the solution
07:08We've got a lot of tools including suspension from office that we can do now
07:13We're working with Tom and his team on some additional operations
07:18We've been doing a lot in Florida
07:20But you're gonna see a lot more that's gonna happen over the over the weeks and months and there is no question
07:26I think of all the law enforcement entities in the United States. There's about
07:33285
07:36Entities that have agreements with ice to do this and the majority of those are in Florida. So it just shows you
07:49Let me just let me just emphasize that the
07:52Type of cooperation that Governor DeSantis is talking. It is absolutely critical, right?
07:56So if you look along that southern border the state of Florida the state of Texas
07:59Are leaning for the amount of money the state of Texas has spent during the four years of the Biden administration?
08:05Trying to secure that border because the federal government was just absent from it is tremendous
08:10but you keep going west and you run into New Mexico, Arizona and California and you don't have the same type of
08:16cooperation with federal law enforcement or even there at the state level you have in New Mexico where they're trying to ban private companies from
08:23detaining individuals and deporting them and so there's just a
08:27Different mindset and I think that you see both here in Florida and perhaps maybe even to a lesser extent in, Texas
08:34that
08:35That that's what real cooperation looks like
08:38That's when the state and the federal law enforcement are working together to protect those communities
08:43And that is a model what Governor DeSantis is doing in here in California and then Texas
08:48That is the model that we need around the country just because you're you don't live on the border does not mean that you're not
08:54Impacted about what's going on on the border?
08:56And so we see a number of of states lending National Guard support and others and I think that's great
09:00There's certainly more that they can do as the governor's outlined having their law enforcement
09:06Engage in this fight to help Tom and the folks that he's he's directing
09:11I think is absolutely critical and I think more and more Americans more and more elected officials are
09:17Starting to understand why that's important
09:20And just to be clear new college police governor has done their 287 G to cooperate. Nice
09:27Well that you know, that was another thing
09:29So in this special session, you know, I talked about we had worked on removing disincentive moving magnets and incentives to come
09:36But you know one of the things that had been done in Florida
09:3910 I think 10 years ago 12 years ago before I was a governor was doing in-state tuition
09:46discounts for illegal
09:48Aliens and I'm just thinking to myself like why are you giving a discount?
09:52But yet you live like in Valdosta, Georgia and you got up at your US citizen
09:57You got to pay a lot. It just makes no sense. And so as part of this package, you know that that provision
10:03What was repealed from from Florida law?
10:06And so, you know, it's like these these folks make, you know states can make a bad policy in the past
10:12But if you correct it, I mean, I think that's a really good sign
10:14And I had been working to get that done the entire time. I was governor
10:18We almost got it in 23 and it always would magically fall out of the bill before the bill passed
10:24And then this time we were like, all right, we got to get it done
10:27So so I think that's really really good and I think you know new college being a part of the the solution is great as well
10:35Yeah, and just to be also clear. I voted against that bill 10 years ago governor
10:41And it's where I learned my first good lesson when someone says to you that you're on the wrong side of history
10:45It means you really are on the right side of history
10:48The having said that though the incentives are a real issue and I think the biggest incentive and I'll go to you
10:55czar
10:56What about birthright citizenship? I mean you just get a