Ron DeSantis, Florida legislature square off over who holds true MAGA immigration position

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is locked in a rare power struggle with the GOP-led state legislature over how best to carry out President Trump’s immigration agenda — with lawmakers forging ahead with a crackdown bill that the governor has decried as “swampy politics.”

The row started last month when DeSantis, 46, called for a special session to pass a suite of state reforms intended to match Trump’s hardline border policies at the national level.

Foreshadowing the fight to come, the legislature promptly reconvened, ended the special session DeSantis called for and opened up a new session on their own initiative.

The special session produced the Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy (TRUMP) Act, which DeSantis threatened to veto.

The governor’s chief grievance is a provision that would shift power to enforce immigration law to the agriculture commissioner.

Conservatives have pointed out that the current commissioner, Republican Wilton Simpson, backed a 2014 bill that would have given in-state tuition rates to children who came into the country illegally.

Others say that since Simpson deals with an industry thought to rely heavily on seasonal and migrant workers, he might be less inclined to enforce the removal of those here illegally.

“There’s swampy politics everywhere, and some of these legislative leaders foisted a different bill,” DeSantis vented to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month. “[It] actually takes power away from me as governor and gives it to the commission of agriculture.”

“Who the hell do they think they are to say they need a ‘Mother, may I?’ from the commissioner of freaking agriculture?” the governor also raged during a press event.

“They knew by doing that they could stymie enforcement against illegal immigration. They don’t want to remove illegal aliens from this state. Some of them want cheap labor for some of these business interests.”

Florida state House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican who reps part of Miami-Dade County, took issue with DeSantis’ characterization.

“Everyone makes the assumption that illegal immigrants are in this country only work in agriculture,” Perez told The Post in an interview this week. “The facts are that 1% of illegal immigrants work in agriculture. Most actually work in hospitality.”

DeSantis had pushed for the creation of a “chief immigration officer” but wanted that post to exist under his purview, a demand at which Perez balked.

“The reason that we didn’t want an appointed coordinator is we wanted it to be an elected official, only so that this person can be held accountable at the ballot box, to the constituents,” Perez explained.

“The reason that we had brought up the Commission of Agriculture is it was the one agency that had a network of existing physical offices across the state of Florida,” he added. “So we thought that would be a good skeleton to build upon in order to add more law enforcement in order to fight illegal immigration.”

The legislature has yet to transmit the TRUMP Act to DeSantis, preferring to try to talk out their differences rather than spar over the governor’s inevitable veto.

Trump has loomed large over the impasse but has refrained from publicly taking a side.

“Donald Trump is not a person that shies away from speaking his mind,” Perez said. “I think if he had a side, he would let us know.”

“We changed our bill from its initial start to its finishing product, and part of that was us working in conjunction with the White House to make sure that we added as many favorable pieces of policy as possible.”

Perez has also knocked DeSantis’ approach as too “bureaucratic” and argued that the institution of a state immigration officer and expanded programs to transport migrants to blue states would merely mimic the functions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Another source of criticism from the state legislature is the lack of enforcement of E-Verify in the Sunshine State, an issue that DeSantis has acknowledged.

“The fact that the Department of Commerce hasn’t been doing their job is something that we’re looking into as we speak,” Perez said.

Despite the slings and arrows from DeSantis, the speaker believes that eventually, the two sides will hammer out their differences.

“At the end of the day, we’re all on the same team, and we all want to help President Trump solve illegal immigration,” he said. “So I’m very confident that eventually there will be a product that everyone will be on the same page on, even if it may mean that not everyone loves it.”

The Post contacted DeSantis’ office for comment.