DeSantis warns 'weak' immigration bill will 'kneecap' law enforcement in face-off with legislature

Florida state legislators threw out Governor Ron DeSantis’ plans to crack down on illegal immigration, instead passing their own bill that left out many of the hard-line proposals designed to assist the Trump administration’s deportation efforts and aims to strip the governor of his role in immigration enforcement. DeSantis said it will “kneecap” Florida law enforcement. 

The rebuke from lawmakers comes just weeks after President Trump announced his support for DeSantis’ effort and encouraged other governors to follow his lead. But, Republican state lawmakers had early on expressed doubts, or outright opposition, when DeSantis called a special session of the legislature to pass new laws to aid in the Trump administration’s illegal immigration crackdown. 

Eventually, chamber leadership decided to throw out the governor’s special session, rejected his proposals, and passed their own legislation that DeSantis says is “weak.” The bill has also faced criticism from current and former elected officials and a likely future gubernatorial candidate. 

Veto expected

“We must have the strongest law in the nation on immigration enforcement. We cannot be weak,” DeSantis said in a post to X on Wednesday. “That's what the people expect and what the people have voted for in recent elections, culminating in the mandate earned by President Trump to enact the largest deportation program in history.” 

The governor is expected to veto the legislature’s bill, which he says is inappropriately called the TRUMP Act, because it failed to include many of the governor’s tough provisions, such as preventing illegal aliens from sending remittances back to family members.

“The bill that narrowly passed the Florida legislature last night fails to honor our promises to voters, fails to meet the moment, and would actually weaken state immigration enforcement,” he said. “The removal of illegal aliens residing in our state requires strong legislation that will guarantee state and local deportation assistance, end catch and release, eliminate magnets such as remittances, and adopt supporting policies that will protect Floridians from the scourge of illegal immigration.” 

Instead of adopting the governor’s proposals, the legislature instead ultimately passed a bill filed by outspoken Trump ally State Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota and dubbed the TRUMP Act, which outlined a sweeping reorganization of state immigration authorities and new processes for state and local law enforcement to coordinate with federal agencies. The measure was supported by state House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton. 

These changes, DeSantis says, are meant to “kneecap” state and local law enforcement and would make cooperation with federal law enforcement more difficult. 

Gruter’s bill, which passed both the state House and Senate by significant margins, included some measures, such as stiffened criminal penalties for illegal immigrants accused of crimes and an expansion of beds for ICE operations, unlikely to face objections from DeSantis. 

Who is in charge?

However, the main criticism has centered on the language which strips the governor’s office of the authority to oversee immigration matters in the state.

The bill would instead designate the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture the sole “liaison” between the federal and state government on the issue of immigration enforcement. In Florida, the Agricultural Commission is an elected position not under the governor’s authority, and was up until 2023 occupied by a Democrat. 

According to the bill, any state law enforcement would be required to seek the approval of the designated immigration enforcement officer, the Commissioner of Agriculture, before any communication or coordination with any federal immigration agency. DeSantis and other critics argue that that would unnecessarily grow the bureaucracy and undermine the governor’s chief executive authority. 

The governor’s office normally oversees the state’s law enforcement agencies like the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Florida Highway Patrol, which have both coordinated with federal immigration operations.

The bill also strips the governor of his ability to declare emergencies related to immigration, instead vesting the Agricultural Commissioner with that authority. This new arrangement would also force the state government to deal with the new conflicting authorities between the commissioner and the governor, by requiring the immigration officer to seek assistance from the governor to deploy the Florida National Guard if he deems it is necessary to respond to such an emergency.

In a press conference on Thursday, DeSantis said these changes would only serve to undermine the state government’s coordination with federal immigration authorities. 

"So, ask yourself: is the point of this to actually help with the removal of illegal aliens, or is it to ensure that Florida is a defacto sanctuary state? [Because] if you read the way it's written, it is written to kneecap the people that are out there doing the work to protect this state,” he said. 

State Sen. Gruters did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News. 

“What we're focused on is the executive orders the president has already issued. I talked to the president last night about this bill... we're trying to make it as strong as we possibly can,” Gruters said on Tuesday under questioning from the Florida Senate. “Is this bill perfect? It's not. Are we moving the ball forward?”

Trump-aligned Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, widely viewed as a strong contender in the race for governor in 2026, said he agreed with DeSantis on the immigration powers, but urged both sides to find a solution soon. 

“My hope is is that they resolve this quickly. Um, the one aspect of the bill, and this is where the governor is in my view correct, is that the police powers around the immigration czar, if you will, have to reside with the governor because the governor has police powers not just in Florida, but in every state. So to change that, to me, is not the appropriate use,” Donalds said in an interview on Thursday with the PBD Podcast.

Donalds also urged the legislature and the governor to come to a solution quickly, so that they are able to “seamlessly” work with the federal government to help carry out Trump’s deportation plan instead of presenting a roadblock. 

The state’s House and Senate GOP leaders originally defended their reluctance to go along with DeSantis’ special session, warning that the move was “premature” and could present this very kind of roadblock. 

President Trump, on the other hand, saw DeSantis’ special session as a model for other Republican states to follow. “Thank you Ron, hopefully other governors will follow!” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform shortly after the governor called for the session. 

Florida Rep. Ana Paulina Luna, also a close ally of President Trump, warned that the legislature’s bill would actually undermine Trump’s agenda. “This ‘act’ undermines everything Trump is standing for in DC,” Luna wrote in a post to X. “[I don’t know] what is happening in the FL legislature but this is unacceptable.” 

DeSantis originally delivered a series of proposals to lawmakers focused on implementing tougher rules for state law enforcement requiring cooperation with the federal government and other changes that end incentives for illegal immigration, which were not included in the legislature’s bill. 

The proposals included a measure to require local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal law enforcement to enforce immigration laws and give the governor the power to suspend any official that refuses to do so. Additionally, he proposed instating a presumption against bail release for illegal immigrants to facilitate deportation by ICE. 

These provision appears to be aimed at some local law enforcement leadership who announced that they would not cooperate with the federal immigration enforcement operations or judges in the past who have released illegal immigrants from custody in some sanctuary states. 

The governor’s proposals also included policies to target other “magnets” of immigration like requiring verification of legal residency for sending remittance payments abroad. He also called for the repeal of a Florida law that granted illegal immigrant students in-state tuition to state universities.

In addition, DeSantis proposed funding for a new State Immigration Enforcement Officer “to coordinate with the federal government on immigration enforcement and to oversee the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program,” the controversial program the governor used to send illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022. 

In Tallahassee, some see the legislature’s rejection of DeSantis’ vision as a power play against a “lame duck” governor whose influence over the state is weakening. 

This supposed “lame duck” weakness comes after DeSantis was defeated convincingly in the Republican primary last year by now-President Donald Trump. This marked a big shift from his wildly successful reelection campaign in 2022 where he and most of his cabinet won by double-digit margins against a weakened state Democratic Party.

"This would have been unthinkable two years ago,” one unnamed Florida-based Republican strategist told Fox News. He explained that it “shows that he's sunsetting and the legislature is not afraid to buck him."