TALLAHASSEE, FL. With Governor Ron DeSantis pledging to reject the legislation voted by Republican lawmakers late Tuesday night, an attempt to enact President Donald Trump’s immigration accord in Florida is expected to fail.
Trump, who owns a house in Florida and has recruited several Floridians into his administration, helped arrange the deal.
However, it immediately encountered a fierce conflict between DeSantis and the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature, which now feels more confident in opposing the once-all-powerful governor.
Late into the night, lawmakers worked to strengthen a measure that they and DeSantis claimed was intended to bring Florida state laws into compliance with a number of executive orders that Trump had signed.
However, the bill’s main source of contention persisted because it included language that would transfer the majority of state immigration authority from DeSantis to state Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. Simpson and the governor have a chilly relationship, and DeSantis and his staff publicly attacked Simpson during the process.
For DeSantis, that was the most crucial clause. The governor promised on Wednesday morning to veto the law when it reaches his desk, but that hasn’t happened yet.
On Wednesday morning, DeSantis wrote on X, “The veto pen is ready.”
Both parties personally urged Trump to openly endorse their versions of the law, which led to the impending veto.
The president contacted some of his supporters in the Florida Legislature to support their initial proposal and spoke with DeSantis directly about the idea.
A person familiar with the conversation told NBC News that when the governor spoke with Trump [Monday] morning, he acknowledged that the plan needed to be changed and promised to assist in contacting lawmakers to strengthen it.
Some of the adjustments that Trump and DeSantis desired were made to the law as a consequence of those efforts.
The White House was contacted by NBC News over the Florida law.
A new 84-page proposal was filed just 30 minutes before the Florida state Senate met again Tuesday night. It included a number of hard-line measures that Trump has pushed, such as mandatory death sentences for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes like murder and child rape, as well as increased sentencing guidelines for certain crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and the creation of a bonus program for local law enforcement professionals who collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement task forces.
In an effort to put more pressure on lawmakers, DeSantis has been attacking Simpson, Florida House Speaker Danny Perez, and Senate President Ben Albritton for their versions of the bill on national conservative media outlets in recent days. He has called their proposal an unconstitutional transfer of immigration powers to the state’s top agriculture office.
On Monday night, he told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, “There are swampy politics everywhere, and some of these legislative leaders foisted a different bill.” The power I currently possess is taken away from me by the bill.
A governor veto can be overridden by Republicans in the Legislature with supermajorities, but that is becoming less probable because enough of DeSantis’s supporters voted with him.
The governor will be able to claim a victory lap if DeSantis vetoes the legislation after the Legislature effectively launched an immigration battle against him, but the voting totals show how much influence he has lost with lawmakers.
When DeSantis stood for president in 2024, they had given him almost everything he had requested over the previous five years.
In the Senate, where the numbers were narrower, only five of the 29 Republicans defied their own legislative leadership and backed with DeSantis.
The battle with DeSantis is also anticipated to continue into the state’s normal legislative session, when Republicans are ready to put up proposals that DeSantis rejects and that may weaken his position of power.
Examining if taxpayer funds were utilized to support social media troll campaigns aimed at trying to influence and assault lawmakers was one strategy put up by lawmakers Tuesday night. Legislators were subjected to constant attacks on X by both DeSantis supporters with a large following and waves of anonymous accounts that are typically regarded as troll accounts created specifically for attacking. This was a defining feature of DeSantis’ political strategy.
State Representative Juan Porras, a Trump friend in the Florida House, stated, “I think that may be something that we may take up in the House.” Perhaps we will discover how much money is spent on assaulting lawmakers.
It is anticipated that the battle will continue even though no legislation was enacted.
DeSantis is anticipated to summon lawmakers back for a special session to try to pass an immigration overhaul again as soon as he vetoes the bill that was enacted Tuesday night.