TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—The Florida Legislature gathered on Jan. 27 to immediately open and then close a special session called by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Legislators replaced his immigration proposals with their own under their terms.
It is focused on cracking down on illegal immigration and addressing line-item vetoes made by DeSantis in 2024.
The special session was closed “sine die,” which means the abrupt change effectively kills any bills to be considered during the original special session and presents new legislation.
In this case, immigration bills that were put forth were replaced by another one, the “Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act.”
That bill is set to be voted on by the state Senate on Jan. 28.
“This is pretty unprecedented,” state Sen. Jay Collins told The Epoch Times of the session swap. Collins was given the new 75-page bill to review only a few hours before he was set to consider it during an appropriations committee meeting.
“I always want to read it and try to understand it before I make a comment,” he said ahead of his committee meeting.
“But I will tell you the language we had had before in the first special session was legitimate. It filled a gap. Immigration is something the American people and Floridians across the board have spoken on.”
It would also create a Local Law Enforcement Immigration Grant Program and an Office of State Immigration Enforcement under the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services within the Division of Law Enforcement.
This would make the commissioner of agriculture, Wilton Simpson, the chief immigration officer, described as “the only person responsible for serving as liaison between certain entities regarding federal immigration laws.”
However, he criticized the bill as being “substantially weaker” than what he had proposed, calling it “a bait-and-switch tactic trying to create the illusion of an illegal immigration crackdown, when it does anything but.”
“It fails to put an enforceable duty on state and local law enforcement to fully cooperate on illegal immigration enforcement,” the governor said.
DeSantis said it did not ensure that at least 10 percent of local law enforcement officers would be available to exercise the power, privileges, and duties of an immigration officer.
“This means that Florida localities will provide no meaningful assistance to federal efforts,” he said.
The governor said that the bill does not address remittances and fails to make it a state crime to enter the United States and then the state illegally.
While the bill makes it a third-degree felony to vote as an illegal immigrant and a felony to assist someone in voting illegally, it stops short of requiring a person registering to vote to affirm under oath that he or she is a legal resident of Florida and a U.S. citizen.
DeSantis also said the Legislature’s push to put the agriculture commissioner in charge “unconstitutionally removes authority to enforce the law from the governor to a lower-level cabinet agency, the department of agriculture, that does not oversee state law enforcement and whose stakeholders often oppose enforcement measures.”
Along with introducing this new legislation, the state House and Senate voted to restore funding cuts from the budget made by DeSantis via line-item veto.
The funds were to present policy options over sales tax fees and a report addressing technological, financial, and economic effects on consumers, merchants, banks, processors, and payment cards.
The vetoes passed the House of Representatives with an 111–0 vote and then passed the Senate 36–1.
Albritton touted the override as an example of separation of powers.
“Separation of powers exists for a reason,” he said before the vote. ”We have the opportunity today to override the governor’s veto and restore the funding for these key functions of our independent co-equal branches of government.”
Immigration and the line-item veto overrides were the only topics in the special session proclamation.
It is unclear whether both chambers will pass legislation on other focal points of DeSantis’s original order, such as reforming the citizen petition process and replenishing disaster relief efforts.
“When you look at ballot reform, the referendums, it’s a problem,” Collins said. “It really is, and it’s something that we can’t wait on. I think that was worthy of managing now, and our community has been very clear on that.”
The governor criticized the Legislature for this change of focus.
“Imagine that—a Republican legislature voted to expand government and add more money to a fiscally conservative budget to pay for bureaucrats.”
