DeSantis Backs 'Remain in Mexico' Policy, Says he Would Stop 'Bogus Asylum Claims'

Fort Myers—Gov. Ron DeSantis continued his bill-signing tour throughout Florida today, this time signing SB 214—a measure that would ban financial institutions from generating detailed reports on Americans who purchase firearms, sales for arms dealers, and ammunition. Shortly after signing the bill into law, Gov. DeSantis addressed the end of the Trump-era Title 42 immigration policy by announcing his support of another Trump administration immigration policy, the controversial “Remain in Mexico” initiative.

After saying that the U.S. border with Mexico needs to be shut down, Gov. DeSantis said that on “Day One” he “would not entertain any of these bogus asylum claims at the border.

“We would not entertain any of these bogus asylum claims at the border. First of all, when you do an asylum claim you have to go to a port of entry.  This is not break into the country and then claim asylum,” said Gov. DeSantis.

DeSantis added that asylum seekers needed to file for asylum in the first country they enter and that implementing former President Trump’s  “Remain in Mexico” would take away the incentive for migrants to make the trip through Mexico and to the border.

“This is not the way it works. You also have to apply for asylum in a safe country—your first safe country you get to.  So you know somebody crossing five countries to get to our southern border, that is not valid asylum they would have had to have done that,” added DeSantis.   So just rejecting that idea, having them wait in Mexico if they do have a mixed potentially valid claim before that can be done, you're removing the incentives for them to want to come.

DeSantis continued, blaming President Joe Biden for the surge of illegal immigrants crossing the order after he invited them to migrate to the U.S. during his 2020 presidential campaign, before a jab at Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador over his recent criticism of Florida’s recently signed immigration reform laws.

“You have this Mexican president who's criticizing Florida for enacting laws against illegal immigration. It's like he's got a disaster on his hands. He's got cartels that are totally out of control, that are running his country,” concluded DeSantis. “All the millions of people coming into our country they're all going through his country, and what kind of a country just allows people by the millions to just traverse like that?”