Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has a sharp strategy for dealing with illegal immigrants if he is elected to the presidency: Start by deporting every illegal who entered the country under President Joe Biden, and allow states to partake in removals as well.
DeSantis made his promise to remove Biden’s illegals while speaking in California on Friday.
“So, everyone that has come illegally under Biden, [we gotta] send them back. So, that’s going to be the first priority. That’s probably six or seven million people right there,” he speculated while adding, “It’s going to require a lot of effort, it’s going to require us to lean in, but if you don’t have a sanction for violating the law — I support building a wall, I support all this — you’re going to continue to have it.”
DESANTIS: “Everyone that has come illegally under Biden” will be deported.
“That’s going to be the first priority. That’s probably 6 or 7 million people right there.”
“I would note that the former president is campaigning on the same promise he made in ’16 that he didn’t… pic.twitter.com/L9XqwCPPU1
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) September 29, 2023
Last spring, the data showed that the Biden administration had released at least two million illegal aliens into the U.S. That number did not include the likely million-plus illegal aliens who evaded authorities altogether. Since then, the number of illegal aliens who have crossed the U.S. border has continued apace with September seeing more than a quarter of a million encounters at the Southwest border.
Based on those numbers, five or six million would likely be a conservative estimate by the end of Biden’s term.
Former President Donald Trump — the current GOP frontrunner — is also campaigning on enacting massive deportation raids, but DeSantis argued Friday that Trump failed to deliver on those promises during his first term.
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“I would note that the former president is campaigning on the same promise he made in ’16 that he didn’t deliver on,” he added. “In fact, Obama’s first term there were more deportations than under Trump’s term in office. Now, he is saying he is going to do this great thing. He had four years and didn’t get the job done. We are going to get the job done.”
As flagged by Townhall.com, DeSantis also plans to give states the necessary authority to remove illegal aliens.
“When I am president, we are going to unleash the states; they are going to be equal partners with enforcing immigration law,” DeSantis recently told The Blaze’s Glenn Beck.
“If someone comes across the river illegally into Texas, Texas should be able to send them back,” he gave as an example.
All of it sounds great and is what is desperately needed — but if DeSantis hopes to have better success than Trump as president, he better also be prepared to deal with the mountain of lawsuits sure to follow. As president, the Trump administration faced practically an endless number of lawsuits — many of which either hampered or slowed his ability to deport illegal aliens and enact the immigration policy he wanted. (See the DACA debacle).
If he wants to carry out these plans as commander-in-chief, DeSantis first has to win the GOP primary — and right now, national and state polls suggest that Trump is the runaway winner.
Nonetheless, the Florida governor’s deportation policies should be commended and adopted by whoever winds up with the nomination.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.