Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called for a special legislative session to implement President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda during his first 100 days in office.
“I’m going to call the Legislature into special session starting the week of Jan. 27,” DeSantis said at a press conference Monday. “We have the next president taking office Jan. 20, we anticipate executive orders to be issued immediately after the swearing-in and the inaugural address.”
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“We’re going to have some time to process and make sure we’re doing what we need to do, but then we need to act and we need to act quickly,” the governor said.
DeSantis also said that he has the authority to suspend officials from their offices if they are “neglecting their duties.”
“State and local officials in Florida must help the Trump administration enforce our nation’s immigration laws,” the governor said. “In order to do that effectively we are going to need legislation to impose additional duties on local officials and provide funding for those local officials. There also needs to be measures to hold people accountable for violating our anti-sanctuary policies and that Florida needs to make sure that we don’t have any lingering incentives for people to come into our state illegally.”
Additionally, the governor said he hopes to secure funding for state and local officials, including sheriffs, so they can carry out enforcement efforts.
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DeSantis’s planned special session could preview the working relationship between the governor and the president for the next two years. The two have had a rocky relationship, starting out as close allies during Trump’s first administration but falling out after DeSantis challenged Trump in the Republican presidential primary. However, the relationship has thawed since Trump won the nomination last year.
Trump is expected to sign a slew of executive orders during his first day in office. The president-elect’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said last month that one executive order would effectively “seal the border.”
