Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ripped the H-1B program for its abuse of while at the same defending the use of immigrant workers in his state.
The Republican gave a press conference predominantly focused on adjustments he will make in the state to facilitate President-elect Donald Trump’s deportation process of illegal immigrants.
“We will allocate resources and ensure state and local officials in Florida are supporting these efforts. We have no time to waste. Florida must lead,” DeSantis said, per First Coast News.
‘We’ve got some big problems with some of the legal immigration programs.’
However, when it comes to the ever-growing issue of foreign workers under the H-1B program, DeSantis said it was important not to mix the two issues.
“We have legal immigrants in Florida. So you can’t conflate illegal immigrants with people who are here legally,” he began.
“I’ve also said we’ve got some big problems with some of the legal immigration programs that we have,” the governor continued before providing an example.
“We’ve seen this H-1B program, how companies will bring in H-1B [workers], the Americans train the H-1B [workers], and then they fire the Americans and hire the H-1B. How would that even remotely be acceptable?”
DeSantis continued his press conference by criticizing chain migration:
“You have chain migration, which is not merit-based and is bringing in this more distant relatives, not what you want. So there’s a whole host of issues there that that need major reform.”
At the same time, the governor said he had heard criticisms of immigrant farm laborers and defended them on the grounds of being legal.
“From an immigration enforcement perspective, I mean, if somebody is here on, like, an H-2A visa, they are working in the state of Florida legally. And when we did E-Verify, people would say, … ‘Hey. There’s a a busload of farm workers. I saw them on I-4.’ And people assume they’re illegal.”
DeSantis’ comments largely defended the work of the Trump administration on illegal immigration and Trump’s upcoming deportation plan. The governor even threatened to suspend elected officials from office in Florida if they are found to be “neglecting their duties” and causing roadblocks for the new immigration mandates.
“It will require new legislation in Florida to ensure that the duties of both state and local officials are very clear and that those duties require them to be assisting the federal government in this regard,” he said.
DeSantis added, per the Post Millennial, “I have the authority, with respect to certain officials, to suspend them from office if they are neglecting their duties.”
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