Ron DeSantis, Florida legislature square off over who holds true MAGA immigration position

Florida Gov.Ron DeSantis is locked in a rare power struggle with the GOP-led state legislature over how best to carry out President Trump’s immigration agenda — with lawmakers forging ahead with a crackdown bill that the governor has decried as “swampy politics.”The row started last month when DeSantis, 46, called for a special session to pass a suite of state reforms intended to match Trump’s hardline border policies at the national level.Foreshadowing the fight to come, the legislature promptly reconvened, ended the special session DeSantis called for and opened up a new session on their own initiative.The special session produced the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act, which DeSantis threatened to veto.The governor’s chief grievance is a provision that would shift power to enforce immigration law to the agriculture commissioner.Conservatives have pointed out that the current commissioner, Republican Wilton Simpson, backed a 2014 bill that would have given in-state tuition rates to children who came into the country illegally.Others say that since Simpson deals with an industry thought to rely heavily on seasonal and migrant workers, he might be less inclined to enforce the removal of those here illegally.“There’s swampy politics everywhere, and some of these legislative leaders foisted a different bill,” DeSantis vented to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month.

“[It] actually takes power away from me as governor and gives it to the commission of agriculture.”“Who the hell do they think they are to say they need a ‘Mother, may I?’ from the commissioner of freaking agriculture?” the governor also raged during a press event.“They knew by doing that they could stymie enforcement against illegal immigration.They don’t want to remove illegal aliens from this state.

Some of them want cheap labor for some of these business interests.”Florida state House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican who reps part of Miami...