DeSantis reveals tough strategy for border security.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Unveils Bold Plan to Secure U.S. Southern Border

Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Monday provided his most detailed plan yet for securing the U.S. southern border with Mexico as he tries to make up ground against Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Challenging Trump and Taking Action

At an event in Eagle Pass, Texas, on the Rio Grande river border with Mexico, DeSantis took a swipe at Trump, lumping him with other presidents he said had failed to take action to stem the flow of migrants at the border.

“No excuses on this,” DeSantis said. “Get the job done.”

DeSantis, who announced his presidential bid last month, has struggled to gain momentum against Trump, the ex-president who is seeking another term in the White House. National opinion polls show DeSantis trailing Trump by more than 20 percentage points.

DeSantis’s border-security plan marked his latest effort to appeal to the party’s hardcore conservative voters in the hope of peeling some away from Trump, who has made illegal immigration a core issue of his presidential bids.

After touting his record as Florida governor for weeks on the campaign trail, DeSantis is slowly rolling out national policy programs. Energy and tax plans are in the offing, he said.

A Comprehensive Border Plan

As part of his border plan, DeSantis would:

• End so-called catch and release
• Detain migrants crossing the border until their hearing dates
• Deny entry to any migrant at the border claiming political asylum
• Tax remittances from migrants living in the country illegally to pay for the construction of a border wall
• Move to end birthright citizenship
• Allow state and local officials to enforce federal immigration laws
• Employ U.S. law enforcement assets across the border if necessary to stop the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the United States
• Take unilateral executive action without waiting for Congress to act

Trump has also pledged to end birthright citizenship and to continue the hardline immigration policies he instituted as president. His campaign on Monday accused DeSantis of “copying and pasting” Trump’s policy agenda.

A Portal for Migrants

At the Texas event, DeSantis contended that the border has become a portal through which migrants from around the world enter and said the influx was straining the budgets of local communities.

“There are people from halfway around the world coming through on this southern border because they know all you got to do is show up in the border and you’re going to get a ticket to come into the interior of the United States,” he said.

Ammar Moussa, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, criticized DeSantis’s plan, saying it consists of “political gimmicks that are merely an echo of the same cruel and callous policies of the Trump administration that broke our immigration system.”

President Joe Biden’s administration last week secured a victory before the U.S. Supreme Court when it held that border states could not challenge federal priorities on enforcement of immigration policy.

Speaking with reporters after the event on Monday, DeSantis again defended his use of private planes to relocate migrants from Texas to Democratic-run states such as California and Massachusetts.

“It’s been very effective,” he said, adding that it “will continue to be used.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Mark Heinrich)