HIALEAH GARDENS, FL—Governor Ron DeSantis said he would sign a bill allowing Florida officials to imprison and deport illegal immigrants, saying the states must step up to the federal government's "violation" of immigration laws.
"I support it. They say the federal government is supreme when it comes to immigration, which is fine...but we have laws on the books that the federal government isn't enforcing, and in fact they're intentionally violating," DeSantis told reporters at a Wednesday morning press conference.
"I would sign it in Florida," he added.
He responded to Republican Senator Blaise Ingoglia telling The Floridian that he's going to file a bill mimicking a Texas law allowing their officials to arrest and deport illegal immigrants.
Under the Texas law—which is currently tied up in a federal appeals court—illegally crossing the Rio Grande once is a second-degree misdemeanor and twice is a second-degree felony.
Charges can be fully waived if the migrant agrees to return to Mexico.
"All Texas is saying is 'We want to enforce the federal laws! Biden, you won't uphold your oath of office—we'll do it,'. I think states have every right to do that," DeSantis said, discussing the Department of Justice challenging the law because immigration laws fall under the federal government's exclusive authority.
"I think it's been a huge, huge disaster, but it's intentional," DeSantis said of Biden's immigration policies. "He instituted policies that have created this mess to begin with."
Biden has taken 535 immigration actions in his first three years in office, outpacing Donald Trump's 472 immigration-related executive actions. He has extended protections to hundreds of thousands of migrants and narrowed the enforcement priority categories for illegal immigrants.
