TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's governor vowed "no more excuses" Monday, saying he'd secure the nation's southern border if elected president. Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged an emergency declaration and use of force, if necessary while speaking in Texas.
"What we're saying is no excuses on this," DeSantis said at a townhall event in Eagle Pass. "Get the job done. Make it happen. We want results. We don't want hollow rhetoric. We don't want empty promises."
The Republican's laundry list of goals includes the following;
- Declaring a national emergency
- A crackdown on drug cartels
- Limiting asylum claims
- Completing a border wall
- Allowing the use of force against drug runners who, DeSantis said, are cutting through the structure already there.
"If somebody were breaking into your house to do something bad, you would respond with force — yet why don't we do that at the southern border," DeSantis said at a news conference later in the day. "If the cartels are cutting through the border wall, trying to run product into this country, they're going to end up stone-cold dead as a result of that bad decision."
The governor also went further, seeking to eliminate what he called "birth tourism." DeSantis said he wanted to force a reinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution to end birthright citizenship.
"This idea that you can come across the border two days later have a child, and somehow that's an American citizen," DeSantis said. "That was not the original understanding of the 14th Amendment."
National Democrats denounced DeSantis' goals as an "extreme immigration platform." In a statement, a DNC spokesperson said the governor was using "hollow talking points" that were attempting to appease the right-wing fringe.
"Ron DeSantis has repeatedly used young children and families as pawns in his shallow political stunts to pander to the MAGA base," Ammar Moussa, a DNC spokesperson, said. "This latest plan is more of the same — political gimmicks that are merely an echo of the same cruel and callous policies of the Trump administration that broke our immigration system."
Back in the Sunshine State, Democrats like state Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, warned immigration reforms DeSantis has already put in place are hurting more than helping. She's among those warning the governor's policies are driving entire families, undocumented or not, out of Florida and weakening the workforce.
"Whether they're Republicans or Democrats, we are seeing opposition to these types of policies," Eskamani said. "I think it's another example of how the Republican-dominated Legislature has gone too far."
Even so, political experts think DeSantis' real goals Monday were to get publicity and plant a flag on immigration. Political communications expert Josh Scacco at the University of South Florida said border security had become a flagship issue for the GOP this cycle.
"This issue continues to animate some Republican primary voters, so it makes sense for the governor to try and associate himself with something on the minds of voters," Scacco said. "He also does not have direct experience with the southern border, though deals with a different set of immigration-related issues in Florida."
Professor Sean Foreman, a politics expert with Barry University, said DeSantis was also using the topic to dunk on the Biden administration while attempting to differentiate himself from the GOP frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
"It's a strategy we are seeing with other policies as well, including abortion, COVID responses, and government spending," Foreman said. "DeSantis is attacking Biden head-on while also making jabs at Trump on the margins. For example, DeSantis said he will finish the job of building a border wall while subtly saying that migration across the southern border increased under Trump and then shouting that the crisis has exploded under Biden."
The Trump campaign was more blunt in its attack on DeSantis. The former president's spokesman took to Twitter, calling DeSantis the "Fisher Price version" of Trump. The ex-commander-in-chief also released his own immigration statement on Monday. Trump touted his work on the border wall, promised to "declare war and defeat the cartels," plus what sounded like mass deportations if reelected.
"Under my leadership, we had the most secure border in U.S. history, by far," said Trump. "When I take the oath of office on January 20th, 2025, we will immediately begin the process of fully securing the border and removing the illegal aliens Joe Biden has unlawfully allowed to break into our country."
The Biden administration touched on the immigration debate Monday, as well. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a press briefing said she was bound by the Hatch Act and not able to weigh in on campaign matters directly, but she defended President Joe Biden's immigration policy to date.
"He has secured record funding for border security," Jean-Pierre said. "He has a record number of agents and officers securing our border and is implementing policies that have resulted in a significant drop in unlawful border since Title 42. That is what the president has done."
The Biden press official went on to say the "question is to, not us, but it is to congressional Republicans and what they have done to make this situation even more difficult..."
