
Florida Politicians Scramble to Keep up with Trump's Immigration Agenda Amid GOP Power Tussle
In the wake of the Laken Riley Act, signed by Trump earlier this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis calls Florida legislature’s bill “weak,” while advocates for immigrant rights question the constitutionality of it all.

An arrest by ICE agents in Dallas. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.)
By Morgan Harms | MediaLab@FAU
Jan 31, 2025
Laken Riley, a nursing student, was murdered by a migrant while jogging on campus at the University of Georgia. Now, almost a year later, an act aimed at immigration reform named after the 22-year-old became the first bill President Donald Trump signed into law in his second term.
Florida lawmakers are scrambling to march in step with Trump’s immigration initiatives, voting on Tuesday to pass legislation called the “Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy,” dubbed the TRUMP Act.
However, Gov. Ron DeSantis has pledged to veto it, in what seems to be a power struggle between legislators and the executive branch in his final term as Florida’s governor.
Riley’s tragic death on Feb. 22, 2024, added fuel to the fire of a heated argument about undocumented migrants across the country. The man convicted of Riley’s murder, José Antonio Ibarra, is a Venezuelan citizen who was residing in the United States without citizenship. He was sentenced to life without parole.
In 2022, Ibarra was arrested for illegal entry. He was released to pursue his case in immigration court. Ibarra had also been arrested in New York City for child endangerment, and by Georgia police for shoplifting, but he was not issued a detainer nor taken into custody after either incident.
Many of those in favor of the bill claim that if Ibarra had been detained sooner by immigration officials, Riley would still be alive today.
“Today’s signings bring us one step closer to eradicating the scourge of migrant crime in our communities once and for all,” Trump said at the signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act on Jan. 29.
“There’s no amount of change that will ever bring back our precious Laken. Our hope moving forward is that her life saves lives,” Laken Riley’s mother, Allyson Phillips, said at the ceremony.
The Republican-led house passed the Laken Riley Act on Jan. 22 in a 263-156 vote, with 46 Democrats supporting the Republican majority. One week later, Trump signed the legislation into law.
Under the Laken Riley Act, the Department of Homeland Security is required to detain those in the U.S. without citizenship who have been charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admit to having committed burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.
The law makes it easier for federal immigration officials to detain and deport individuals without legal status who have been charged with crimes, because it does not require a conviction. The law also authorizes states to sue the federal government for decisions related to immigration enforcement.
Many of the bill’s opponents claim that this legislation is a violation of due process, a clause to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The Due Process Clause prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. It has been held by the U.S. Supreme Court that this protection applies to all human beings, regardless of race, color or citizenship.
“This bill makes no one safer. In fact, it will require jailing immigrants who haven’t been convicted of a crime at taxpayer expense,” Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a South Florida representative, said in a statement.
According to the Migrant Policy Institute, Miami-Dade county has the second highest immigrant population in the country. The state of Florida has the third-highest immigrant population. And, according to the American Immigration Council, 4.9% of the Florida population is undocumented.
Florida’s TRUMP Act spans 80-plus pages, proposing further coordination between a “Trump-led ICE” and state and local law enforcement to implement federal immigration policy. It also pledges $500 million to assist state and local law enforcement agencies, and removes out-of-state tuition waivers for students without citizenship.
Other language in the bill includes providing judges with information about an undocumented defendant’s immigration status that can be used to deny bail, reclassifies misdemeanors to the next highest degree if committed by a person who has been previously convicted of a federal crime relating to the reentry of removed migrants, and that any non-citizen migrant who willfully votes in any election is guilty of third- degree felony.
The bill would also transfer control of state immigration enforcement to Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a Trump ally and potential 2026 gubernatorial candidate.
“We are not going to accept weak policies,” DeSantis said in a press conference Wednesday in response to the House’s sweeping 82-30 pass of the Senate’s version of the TRUMP Act. “They decided to do a bill that not only won’t work, that actually is weaker than what we have today.”
DeSantis has his own version of the bill, which was rejected by Republican legislative leaders, House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton in favor of their own proposal.
“Threatening others to get your way isn’t leadership, it’s immaturity. The people of our state deserve better,” Perez said Tuesday evening, in his final remarks on the floor.
In addition to similar concepts from the TRUMP Act, DeSantis’ proposal includes mandating “maximum participation” in ICE’s 287(g) deportation program, with “penalties for non-compliance,” expanding Florida’s Unauthorized Alien Transport Program (UATP) to detain and facilitate the deportation of undocumented immigrants, and legally presuming that all undocumented immigrants are flight risks.
This battle over immigration law could be setting the stage for a much bigger shift in Florida Republican politics under the influence of the Trump administration.
“The Governor wants the power to execute his own deportation, which state governments don’t have. That’s under the purview of the federal government,” said Thomas Kennedy, consultant and former political director for the Florida Immigration Coalition (FLIC). “I would say that the governor's bill is probably worse, but they’re both bad bills. It’s basically a power struggle about larger things than immigration.”
The proposed Florida immigration bills – both the TRUMP Act and the legislation DeSantis proposed – will repeal in-state college tuition for students without citizenship, something that was implemented over a decade ago.
According to Kennedy, FLIC was working with a Democratic senator to introduce an amendment to the TRUMP Act that would allow current undocumented students receiving in-state tuition to finish out their degree with these benefits. This amendment was rejected.
“It’s just really mean. There’s this very cruel undertone to everything that’s happening, and I think it’s just very disturbing to see,” Kennedy said. “The community is just prepping and getting ready for what’s coming.”
After quickly moving the 84-page bill through the Florida House and Senate in less than 48 hours, Kennedy feels the manner in which federal and state lawmakers are handling immigration law is both frightening and a testament to a flawed democratic system.
“Immigration law is one of the most complicated branches of law in the country,” Kennedy said, casting doubt on whether most state lawmakers had enough time and expertise to properly study the bill before voting on it.
“A couple of hours to read an 84-page immigration bill? It’s a joke,” he added, referring to the swift pass of the bill.
Kennedy criticized both the state and federal lawmakers' recent actions in regard to immigration, referring to an alleged lack of constitutionality.
“Aside from whatever you may believe, we still operate within a constitutional framework in this country.”