Florida Gov. DeSantis pushes back against reporter criticizing ICE operations

Florida Gov. DeSantis argued with a reporter on Thursday over illegal immigration, telling her “you seem to have no sympathy for people that have been victimized by illegal aliens” after she suggested work being done by ICE is “a little sloppy.” 

The fireworks erupted after the Republican spoke about Operation Tidal Wave, a record-breaking joint Florida-ICE operation resulting in the arrests of more than 1,100 illegal immigrants. 

“This is wonderful, this dog and pony show, but there are American citizens who are being deported – they show their birth certificates, they show their passports, they show their IDs and a lot of the work being done is a little sloppy,” the reporter, who identified herself as being from Florida station WSVN, told DeSantis. 

“Well, first of all, I’ll let ICE handle that accusation that you’re making that they’re deporting American citizens who are showing birth certificates and all that. I don’t believe that that’s true, but I’ll let them respond to that. But you seem to have no sympathy. You seem to have no sympathy for people that have been victimized by illegal aliens,” DeSantis shot back. 

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“What about people — you have someone driving drunk and kills [an] American citizen. What about people that have been deported previously and let in under Biden, who then commit sexual offenses or commit homicides? And then we have more victims as a result of the federal government’s previous inattention and unwillingness to enforce the law. So there are a lot of people that have been harmed by illegal immigration. There have been people that have been harmed by Tren de Aragua gang members who should not be in this country in the first place,” DeSantis continued. 

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“So let’s just be clear. Who are you fighting for?” Desantis asked. “We’re fighting for the citizens of Florida. We want them to be able to live in a society that upholds the rule of law. We want them to be able to live in a state that is safe, and we have to take action on it.” 

“I’ll let them address your accusations. But the notion that somehow this is America, therefore we’re supposed to have an open border? We’re not supposed to enforce immigration laws, we’re supposed to just sit on our hands? When Biden let in 7 or 8 million people illegally into the country? No, that is not responsible,” DeSantis concluded. “That is not what our citizens elected us to do. So we’re in this fight. I think a lot of these narratives that I hear, to me, just instinctively, I think they’re fake narratives because I’ve seen it happen so many times.”