Gov. DeSantis stands firm on immigration policy at Sarasota roundtable

DeSantis hosts roundtable with Trump's border czar

Evan Axelbank reports.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Gov. Ron DeSantis hosted a roundtable with current and former federal immigration officials at the New College of Florida in Sarasota on Thursday.

DeSantis was joined by U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan, AFPI Center for Homeland Security & Immigration VP Chad Wolf, and New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran.

The backstory:

Immigration has been a key focus for the governor so far this year.

In February, he signed what he called the toughest anti-illegal immigration bill in the country, which came after clashes with the Florida Legislature and multiple special sessions.

Pictured: Governor Ron DeSantis alongside State House Speaker Danny Perez (left) and Florida's Senate President Ben Albritton (right).

The bill requires state law enforcement agencies to work with and be trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It also requires those in the state who are in the U.S. illegally and charged with felonies to be held without bond – and if they're convicted of a capital crime, it requires the death penalty.

In recent weeks, the governor has deputized state law enforcement to assist the Department of Homeland Security and ICE with immigration enforcement. He also established the Florida Immigration Enforcement Board and Council.

What they're saying:

During Thursday's roundtable, DeSantis was vocal about the roles of both the federal and state governments in reforming and enforcing immigration laws.

"You have the Trump Administration that's gone 100 miles a minute on all this stuff, you know, everything but the kitchen sink to move the country in the right direction," DeSantis said. "Congress is almost like the opposite. They're on a two-week vacation right now."

Pictured: Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a roundtable at the New College of Florida in Sarasota.

The governor also touted action his administration has taken at the state level.

"We did a lot over a number of years, but with the election of President Trump, that provided us an opportunity to be a really, really significant factor in the enforcement of immigration laws," DeSantis said.

DeSantis, Homan and Wolf also addressed the recent controversy surrounding Trump's invoking of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants, which a federal judge quickly blocked. Despite that ruling, hundreds of immigrants were flown to El Salvador.

PREVIOUS: Judge blocks Trump's use of 1798 law to deport Venezuelan migrants

"Are we ruled by the consent of the governed under elections and under a written Constitution, or are we ruled by a district judge in D.C., Hawaii, wherever the hell they can shop for a judge?" DeSantis said.

"They came this country to commit violent crimes," said Homan. "To spread fentanyl, to kill a thousand Americans and create havoc and unsettle this nation."

While DeSantis said Congress should consider stripping the right of federal courts to decide immigration cases, which he believes is a function of the presidency, Homan went further, disputing that the judge's ruling should apply.

He said the president's executive order that designates members of the Venezuelan jailhouse gang, "TdA," to be an enemy of the state.

"But bottom line is, we're not [going] to stop doing what we're doing. We're going to arrest the aliens today. We've arrested TdA today. We're going to deport today. Today we're going to war criminals every single day."

The other side:

Prior to Thursday's roundtable, a group gathered outside the New College of Florida to protest the Trump Administration's immigration policies.

"I stand up for justice. Our country's become an autocracy. This is the biggest crisis in American history," said one protestor.

"I'm here for a lot of reasons. I'm really worried, and I want to make sure that we can preserve our democracy," said another protestor.

Protesters gathered outside the New College of Florida ahead of a roundtable on immigration.

The immigration policies of Trump and DeSantis have faced heavy criticism from Democrats and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit that led to the temporary restraining order on deportations, said it was asking the government whether the removals to El Salvador were in defiance of the court. An attorney for the ACLU has also said "I think we're getting very close" to a constitutional crisis.

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Dig deeper:

The speakers laughed off the protestors, saying that the president was merely invoking a law that was passed by Congress and signed by the president. It has been used three times in the past, all in wartime, and was linked to the actions of a foreign government.

Homan said TdA is linked to the Maduro regime.

"We're going to do everything we can to get every single TdA member in this country as quick as we can," he said.

The Maduro regime responded to all this by saying "our boys did not commit any crime in the United States." They said they were not brought to trial nor given a right to a defense, and that they were put on a plane, kidnapped and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador.

They are being held at the High Security Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca. Several lawyers and families of some of the deportees have said their loved ones were arbitrarily deported and are not terrorists at all.

The Source: This story was written using information from a roundtable held in Sarasota, along with previous FOX 13 News and FOX News Digital reports.

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