ORLANDO—Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier solidified his commitment to illegal immigration enforcement under Gov. Ron DeSantis, calling it a top priority of his agenda at the Republican Freedom Forum in Orlando on Saturday.
"My top priority is to help law enforcement detain as many illegal immigrants as possible," Uthmeier told The Floridian. "We're going to detain and deport, and deliver for the American people. That's our agenda."
The state of Florida has arguably become the center of the illegal immigration debate, including after the opening of a new migrant detention facility in the Everglades known as "Alligator Alcatraz." While praised by Republicans for holding some of the worst of the worst criminal migrants, Democrats have chastised the facility as being inhumane.
However, Uthmeier pointed to the massive arrest of nearly 50 individuals days ago for child exploitation, including many foreign nationals in Central Florida, as further reasoning for the state's enforcement. Gov. Ron DeSantis also highlighted numerous arrests of violent criminal migrants alongside the Florida Highway Patrol at a press conference on Friday.
"These are not one-off stories. Every single week, we are arresting heinous criminals and finding that they are illegal aliens," Uthmeier continued. "There are many of them out there."
As an alternative to the Republicans' immigration agenda, some Florida Democrats have offered a "speedy" path to U.S.
citizenship for undocumented immigrants. But the attorney general, appointed by the governor in February, pledged to keep enforcing the law under DeSantis' directive.
The governor also signed a massive
package of anti-illegal immigration policies into law in February, imitating the efforts of President Donald
Trump, who has looked to corral illegal immigration after years of arguable negligence under the Biden administration.
"Immediately after President
Trump took the oath of office, the governor charged all of our state officials to be aggressive and enforce the law, and do everything we can to support the
Trump administration in combating illegal immigration, so that is what we are doing," Uthmeier said.
While Democrats look to make illegal immigration a wedge issue heading into next year's mid-term elections, perhaps by calling it racist or xenophobic, Uthmeier emphasized his duties as the state's chief law enforcement officer while also providing an alternative path to those migrants just looking to achieve the American dream.
"I know that there are people that are undocumented here in the country that might not want to be one of these very malicious, brutal criminals," Uthmeier said. And to those individuals, I've been saying that you have the opportunity to self-deport and go through the appropriate protocols to come into this country illegally. But if you are here illegally, you are breaking the law, and our directive is to detain everyone."
