The Republican leaders of the Legislature made some concessions to Gov. Ron DeSantis in the immigration bills announced Monday, but the governor still isn’t getting the hundreds of millions he wanted to deport immigrants with a program under his purview.
Lawmakers are meeting in Tallahassee this week for the third special session of the year aimed at helping President Donald Trump carry out his immigration enforcement plans. The transport program that provided the money DeSantis used to fly immigrants in 2022 from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, still exists in a section of one of the bills.
However, lawmakers want to require the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to specifically request the state’s assistance in transporting immigrants, reimburse the state for the cost, and directly control any operations.
When DeSantis envisioned the special session he called the Legislature into a week after Trump’s inauguration, he wanted a $350 million budget for the Unauthorized Alien Transport Program to deport people. He also wanted to appoint the person in charge of running the program.
Republican Sen. Joe Gruters of Sarasota and Manatee counties and the sponsor of all the Senate’s proposals for the special session, said the point is to coordinate with the Trump administration.
“[The transport program] was all set up under President Biden. President Biden’s gone. We’re not going to have that issue anymore,” Gruters told reporters Tuesday. “We have these open borders. President Trump has already closed the borders. There’s no need for the political-type events like that anymore, and so it’s completely irrelevant now.”
DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern denied that the bill would remove the governor’s authority to use the transport program.
During the second special session on Jan. 17, Gruters told reporters that the program needed more accountability as lawmakers planned to pass a bill removing the transport program from the governor’s control. The Legislature passed that bill but has not yet sent it to DeSantis, who promised to veto it.
–Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
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Deborah Coffey says
Cruel, inhumane, expensive and, typically MAGA. Let Trump pay every cent for his White Supremacy. Florida will have enough sky high prices to pay for at the grocery stores when the migrants are all gone.
Concerned Citizen says
Wish RonD would focus on being the GOV of FL for a change. Instead of playing pretend POTUS, and blowing our state tax dollars on national issues, why not address some of the many other FL issues that need his attention? But, focusing on state-level FL issues that would actually benefit FL voters might mean conflict with one of the groups that fund him, so…. Buckle up for more pretend POTUS as he auditions for his next job.
Laurel says
Concerned: Exactly right. The current administrations are ultra focused on issues intended to divide us, not real, functional issues that could improve all our lives.
Ray W, says
Last Friday, the St. Louis Fed published its monthly Federal Reserve Employment Data report through January 2025, which contains a significant number of different monthly economic assessments. Anyone can look it up, and it goes back 18 years.
One such assessment is the “Employment Level – Native Born” report. Simply stated, it tracks the total workforce number, in this case that of the native born. It differs from the total jobs report issued each month by a different part of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which derives its monthly jobs added report based on the number of people earning paychecks each month. The FRED report is based on the size of the workforce. The data source is the “Current Population Survey (Household Survey)”. The definitions of that source are not set out in the FRED report.
According to a chart in the report, the employment level of the native born peaked in October 2019 at 131,252k. Six months later, at the depths of the pandemic, the employment level had dropped to 111,365k. Following a rapid rebound and then followed by more normal rises and falls depending on seasons, the number peaked again after the pandemic at 132,254k; the employment level has steadily dropped since then; it now stands at 130,353k.
As I have been commenting for over a year now, demographers argue that the overall number of the native-born workforce has “flatlined” in recent years. 63 months after an initial peak prior to the pandemic, the overall size of the native-born work force has dropped by 899k workers. Many cite this drop to the number of baby boomers who are leaving the workforce; they are not being replaced by young workers, as our native-born birthrate figures continue to drop.
Regarding the foreign-born work force chart, known as the “Employment Level — Foreign Born”, in October 2029, the number was 27,346k. Combining the two gives a number of 158,598k in the workforce. Yes, the foreign-born employment level dropped during the pandemic, but it too rebounded and then simply kept rising. In January 2025, the foreign-born employment level was 31,774k. Unlike the native-born employment level, which has slowly tailed off, the foreign-born employment level is now 4,428k higher than it was 63 months ago.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Economist after economist argue that the reason for comparatively low GDP growth figures in the EU compared to our own impressive GDP growth figures is that their native-born population figures keep dropping in most of these countries. GDP growth can derive from productivity improvements alone, but we have a higher GDP growth rate than most EU countries because we have both productivity improvements and employment growth. The EU countries have only productivity growth.
I have long argued that our future economic hopes rely on millions and millions of new immigrant workers. We need them all in their millions.
Recent labor participation rates for the foreign-born peak late each summer. In August 2024, it peaked at 67.6%, meaning that those four million more immigrants who are now working are accompanied by another two million people who are not working. Some of those two million have to be children. Others may be homemakers.
In August 2024, the labor participation rate for native-born workers was 61.7%. That figure has to include children, too, as well as homemakers and retired boomers. Yes, a significantly higher percentage of the millions of new foreign-born workers participate in our work force, compared to native-born workers.
We just saw a proposed budget from Republican lawmakers. Once again, they claim that future tax cuts can be sustained by strong GDP growth triggered by the tax cuts. In 2017, Republicans claimed that their tax cuts would be offset because we would have 4% GDP growth for 10 years. The growth would offset the cuts. Of course, it didn’t happen. GDP growth during the Trump years was under 3%, and slightly less than the GDP growth during the Obama years, without a tax cut. In effect, if only future GDP growth is strong enough, the taxes raised by the growth will pay for the newly proposed tax cuts. We will see.
Economists predict that deporting a million immigrants a year will shave between 0.3 and 0.4% from any future GDP growth. I sense a conundrum coming. If the economists are correct, how will Republicans explain the low GDP growth caused by the removal of immigrants? I noted in a recent comment that January’s unfilled posted job openings figure is back above eight million. For roughly three years, the number of unfilled posted jobs was above eight million each month, peaking at 12.2 million in early 2022. Last summer, the number finally dropped toward a more normal under-eight-million figure. It is rising again. A rising total will put upward pressure on wages, which will put upward pressure on inflation. Businesses are advertising available work, but they can’t find enough workers.
Buckle up! as Pogo says.
Matt says
Illegal aliens are NOT migrants. Migrants come legally and go through the naturalisation process, get vetted then swear an oath of allegiance to our nation. Illegal aliens do not. It doesn’t matter where they work. Anyone can start the process for $295 , quite a bargain compared to the alternative.
https://www.immigrationdirect.com/us-citizenship-n400-preparation-service/?r=bg-ppc-ta22fn400&msclkid=b3f191649ba418a818f9f6cab30df5b6
Diversity is NOT our strength.
That Trump team is doing an awesome job!