TALLAHASSEE—Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a package of anti-illegal immigration measures Thursday, closing out the third special session of the year and slamming the door on a bout of ferocious infighting between him and GOP legislative leaders.
The package, which includes two stringent bills and a resolution urging federal assistance, is a compromise between DeSantis and the same lawmakers who rebelled against the governor last month: Senators Joe Gruters and Randy Fine. After a combined six hours of debate across both chambers, all measures passed.
DeSantis signed them less than an hour after the second chamber, the House, approved them.
"Today, the Florida Legislature has passed the strongest legislation to combat illegal immigration of any state in the entire country,” DeSantis said after the session, before shrugging off the weeks of brutal rhetoric he had exchanged with lawmakers over immigration policy. "Politics is weird because you can skirmish...but then you may be strong allies at something going forward...I have no hard feelings at all."
On the Senate Floor, bill sponsor Fine struck a different note, remarking how much "grief" he, Gruters, and the Senate President had gotten from the governor's team and Democrats.
"[Gruters] and I and the president have taken a lot of grief for having done this," he said. He then transitioned to the heart of his package—anti-illegal immigration enforcement. "[The left] has come up with the idea, that I find incredibly offensive, that a group of people who are here illegally are 'dreamers.'
"There are 193 countries in the world—we didn't swear an oath to help the other 192," Fine continued. "The dreamers that I worry about are the 2,000 students we know are not going to a Florida university of their choice because an illegal immigrant is there."
The 62-page package combines elements of the bill passed during the last special session—the TRUMP Act—and DeSantis's slew of failed immigration bills filed during the first special session. This new bundle involves SB 2C, which eliminates in-state tuition rates for undocumented students, and SB 4C, which requires the death penalty for illegal immigrants who commit capital crimes.
The bills did not pass easily.
Democrats across chambers filed 16 amendments to blunt the measures' harsher edges, but all failed. Republican Sen. Ileana Garcia voted against the death penalty bill and criticized the elimination of in-state tuition for undocumented students, calling it "petty." She joined another Miami Republican, Sen. Alexis Calatayud, in promising to help those students finish their degrees after the bill takes effect.
"I did have a problem with what I consider to be the targeting of the 6,500 students receiving in-state tuition," she said. "I just thought it was petty and I'm not sure that President Trump was focused on this."
Minority Leader Jason Pizzo agreed, questioning why incarcerated murderers can receive a free education but undocumented college students will be denied discounted tuition.
"I don't want to foot the bill anymore for rapists and murderers to have the same things you're looking to take away from students," Pizzo said.
The death penalty bill, 4C, passed 25-11 in the Senate and 85-29 in the House. The tuition bill, 2C, passed 27-10 in the Senate and 85-30 in the House.
