Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday bashed Republican sheriffs and police chiefs for planning to urge the Trump administration to create a citizenship path for crime-free undocumented immigrants, calling the move “incoherent” and ill-advised.
“This idea that unless you’re an axe murderer you should be allowed to stay, that is not consistent with our laws, and it’s also not good policy,” he said during a Bradenton press conference. “To send [Trump] a letter asking him to go back on his campaign policies, I would not advise that to be done.”
DeSantis referred to the Immigration Enforcement Council that he created last year. Made up of four sheriffs and four police chiefs, all appointed by state GOP leaders, the conservative hardliners are supposed to advise Florida officials on immigration happenings they witness on the ground.
But in a shock pivot from Florida’s strict, no-illegal immigration laws, at least six of the eight council-members brainstormed drafting a letter to Trump and congressional leaders urging the president to stop deporting undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed crimes, and instead seek a path to citizenship for them.
The idea was led by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a favorite of DeSantis often called “America’s sheriff.” Judd — other than calling media reports of a break with DeSantis and Trump “not true” and “offensive” — doubled down a day later: “We need to find a path for them.”
Only one council member who was absent during Monday’s meeting, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, has pushed back on resisting mass deportations.
Florida’s GOP divide on whether to deport all unauthorized immigrants reflects a quiet immigration policy shift seen at the national level. An adviser to Trump, who ran on an all-out mass deportation platform, privately told Republicans to stop talking about full-on deportations and instead only target violent offenders illegally in the country.
This followed a Politico poll finding that 49% of Americans believed Trump’s mass deportations “too aggressive.” It was published the same month that federal immigration authorities agents shot and killed two American protesters in Minnesota.
But that sentiment hasn’t made its way to DeSantis or Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, architects of the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center and strict enforcers of first-in-the-nation immigration laws.
“If people are here illegally, then they are breaking the law,” Uthmeier said yesterday.
DeSantis on Thursday agreed.
“[To say] you come illegally and then you stay until you commit a really violent crime — that just doesn’t work. It’s incoherent, and it’s not what the president ran on,” he said.
He harkened back to the slate of anti-illegal immigration bills he muscled through the Legislature last year. These required all counties to partner with ICE and empowered law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants in Florida on state charges (although a judge has blocked the latter portion).
“I called the special session of the Legislature to make sure that our state and local were assisting with these important federal efforts because I knew even Republican sheriffs, even people in police who are Republican, not everyone agreed with participation,” he said.
“I respect that. But I also know is my job as governor is to do what’s best for the people, not what any one person who gets elected in one county thinks. … We’ve got to keep the momentum going. We certainly don’t want to backtrack on this.”
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.This article appears in Mar. 19 – 25, 2026.