DeSantis Calls Special Session on Immigration, Condo Safety, Hurricane Relief and Petition-Gathering

Saying he expects a “sea change” in federal immigration policies from the incoming Trump administration, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday called the Florida Legislature into special session to deal with illegal immigration and three other issues.

The session will begin on Jan. 27 and will include deliberations on condominium safety regulations, hurricane relief, and fraudulent signature-gathering petitions for constitutional amendments.




“We need to act, and we need to act quickly,” DeSantis said during a press conference he held in Tallahassee to explain why he wants the Legislature to convene just five weeks ahead of its regularly scheduled legislative session, slated to begin on March 4.

DeSantis six days ago in Tampa requested that Senate President Ben Albritton and Speaker of the House Daniel Perez convene a special session, but neither has publicly responded to that request. Special sessions can be called by either the governor or by a joint resolution issued by the Senate president and House speaker, according to the Florida Constitution.

Donald Trump has promised to enact what has been described the “largest deportation effort in American history” once the president-elect is sworn into office on Jan 20.

DeSantis said on Monday that Florida must be prepared to work quickly in concert with the federal government on those deportations, and that means elected officials in the state “must help the Trump administration enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and … 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.”




He called for new laws to hold people accountable who are violating the state’s “anti-sanctuary” policies and elimination of any “lingering incentives” for undocumented people to enter Florida. He added that the costs for these programs would be “probably tens of millions of dollars,” but that they would ultimately save the state money.

He specifically said he wants the state to participate in the Section 287 (g) program to actively enforce immigration law.

Anti-immigration record

Nearly two years ago, DeSantis called on the Florida Legislature to enact what his administration later labelled the strongest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country, just ahead of his run for the Republican nomination for president.

State lawmakers mostly enacted those proposals, with one notable exception: his call for a repeal of reduced in-state tuition rates at Florida colleges and universities for undocumented students. That’s a policy that was led in the Florida House in 2014 by now-Republican Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez and signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Scott.

DeSantis specifically said he wants the Legislature to pass such a bill in the coming months (a measure to do just that has already been filed in the Florida Senate by Republican Randy Fine).

“We’ve tried to work with the Legislature to get that repealed in the past,” he said. “It’s something that always seems to fall out of the bill. No more excuses on this, we need to remove all incentives to come into the state of Florida illegally, and that is one of them.”

Hurricane relief, etc.

The special session will also deal with hurricane relief, specifically for homeowners who suffered property damage during hurricanes Helene and Milton last fall. He said he wants to provide funding to My Safe Florida Home — the home-hardening program that offers inspections and grants of up to $100,000 to upgrade homes and qualify for property-insurance discounts valued up to $700,000. The governor said that his staff had calculated that the price tag to help out those homeowners affected by last fall’s storms “to be about $100 million.”

DeSantis also wants lawmakers to address steep assessments facing condominium owners due to mandatory inspections and reserve funding requirements passed following the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, which killed 98 people.

“We have a responsibility to act to make sure that people can stay in their condo units. The Legislature should not be doing anything that’s going to cause someone to have to flee because of an artificial mandate,” he said, referring to the 2021 legislation. “I think it was a good faith effort; I don’t think people had all of the answers then, but now we’ve seen what’s happened.”

He acknowledged he isn’t certain how far along lawmakers are in enacting condo reform — an issue he has been calling on the Legislature to address since September.

Citizen initiatives

The final legislative item the governor wants lawmakers to tackle in an early session is reforming election laws regarding signature petition fraud.




The Florida Department of State’s Office of Election Crimes and Security released an interim report in October alleging that Floridians Protecting Freedom, the Amendment 4 campaign organization, violated petition gathering laws. Last month, the group agreed to pay a $164,000 fine to the Department of State regarding those allegations, but did not admit to or deny violating Florida election law.

“That is a huge, huge problem,” DeSantis said, adding that the citizen-led initiative process has devolved into a “special-interest” initiative process.

He once again bemoaned the prodigious amounts of money that went into the proposals for adult-use of cannabis and abortion rights on the 2024 November ballot, both of which received majority support but fell short of the 60% threshold required for passage. DeSantis campaigned intensely against both measures and used taxpayer dollars to fund those efforts.

‘Political spectacle’

DeSantis’ call for a special session was slammed by Orlando Democratic House Rep. Anna Eskamani, who said the governor was “wasting taxpayer dollars and Floridians’ time to stage a political spectacle instead of solving the real issues facing our state.”

“This special session is not about helping Floridians — it’s about grabbing national headlines and doubling down on divisive, partisan rhetoric,” she said in a written statement.

“Floridians are struggling with skyrocketing housing and insurance costs, unaffordable healthcare, and stagnant wages. Instead of addressing these pressing issues, Governor DeSantis is prioritizing attacks on immigrants, undermining our democratic process, and giving himself more power to override the will of the people.”

–Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix