DeSantis turns down the volume in immigration battle with legislative leaders

by Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix
February 3, 2025

Gov. Ron DeSantis attempted to salve the intense enmity that has grown in recent weeks between himself and Florida legislative Republicans over the issue of illegal immigration in public remarks he made on Monday morning.

Speaking to reporters from his office in the Capitol after he introduced his proposed 2025-2026 state budget, DeSantis’ tone and style represented a 180-degree shift from his attacks last week after GOP leaders in the Legislature rejected his proposals for immigration reform and came up with their own plan, which most controversially takes the power of immigration enforcement away from his office and gives it to the office of Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.

“We’ve had great discussions. I think we’re going to land the plane,” DeSantis said in response to a statement on social media by GOP U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna that the two sides were coming together on a compromise.

DeSantis said he wasn’t ready to announce any legislative breakthrough just yet but said, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to get there.” He added that he always thought that would be the case, but acknowledged simply that “some things happen.”

His manner seemed to indicate a ceasefire in the charged rhetoric in the media and online over the past week between the governor and GOP leaders. DeSantis labeled the bill supported by House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton as “weak” and said that it created a “conflict of interest” by investing the powers of state immigration enforcement over to Simpson.

He derided the commissioner for voting at one time as a legislator to give driver’s licenses to the undocumented and provide in-state tuition rates to Florida colleges and universities to Dreamers (as did the majority of Republicans when the bill was voted on in 2014).

Praise for rank and file

DeSantis praised the Republican rank-and-file lawmakers he’d lambasted just days ago, saying that “they’ve passed bold initiatives across a wide variety of subject matters and really helped lead the nation, part of the reason why we’ve gone from a deficit of 300,000 registered Republicans to now close to 1.2 million [lead over Democrats], because people do respond to that leadership.

“And while I’m the best well known of all the folks up here, the reality is that the Legislature has had a huge role to play in that. And it wouldn’t be within their character of their more recent actions to not aggressively address illegal immigration given the historic moment.”

One of DeSantis’ loudest critics in the Legislature — Brevard County Republican state Sen. Randy Fine — attempted to keep the discourse on a higher level when he appeared on conservative talk-show host Dana Loesch’s podcast on Monday.

Loesch has been blasting Republicans like Fine for opposing the governor in this battle, and she sharply questioned him about why they were putting the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture in charge of immigration policy and not DeSantis.

“The governor wanted a bill that gave chief immigration enforcement responsibility to somebody in the deep state, he didn’t want the responsibility himself,” Fine said, using a buzzword for Republicans attempts to demean whoever would be that appointed official in the governor’s administration. “We thought it should be a statewide elected official. We thought it should be someone accountable to the voters, and we thought he had the time and the ability to handle it.”

Loesch directly attacked Simpson, saying, “So you want an egg farmer who has ties to illegal labor and exempted himself from E-Verify. You think that’s better?

“I’m not aware of any accusations that President Simpson has ever used illegal immigrants on his farm, and he’s someone who we all supported. Republicans shouldn’t be taking potshots at each other,” Fine responded.

No time

As a way to show that the bill was relatively popular with most rank-and-file Republican lawmakers (it passed the House on an 82-30 vote and the Senate, 21-16), Fine said that only Democratic lawmakers — who opposed the measure en masse in both legislative chambers — had offered amendments to the proposal.

But after the program aired, Hernando County Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, who filed several immigration bills supported by DeSantis that never reached the floor last week, posted on X that there was a reason no Republicans offered their own amendments.

“The bill came out of committee at 5:17 pm. Amendment deadline was 6:17pm. We had ONE HOUR to read the final bill, draft amendments, barcode them and then hand deliver them to the secretary office. Impossible task. I know. I tried,” he wrote.

Concluding his remarks on the issue, DeSantis sounded like he wanted to bury the hatchet.

“I think it was an aberration last week,” he said. “I do think we’re going to be united on this issue, and then we can move forward. So, I look forward to working and continuing to have those discussions.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.