Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged Monday to “build the wall” and stop the steady flow of migrants across the southern border if he is elected president in 2024, taking a twin swipe at President Biden and his chief GOP rival, former President Donald Trump.
Speaking to voters in Eagle Pass, Texas, Mr. DeSantis said people are flooding across the southern border and leveraging lax U.S. policies to gain asylum and a foothold in the interior of the country.
“We have to establish the rule of law in this country,” Mr. DeSantis said to applause from the crowd. “We have to make sure that people understand there is a sanction to violating the law.”
Mr. DeSantis also sounded the alarm over people who march through intermediary countries and slip into the U.S. via Mexico, with some coming from as far as China and Tajikistan.
“There were people from halfway around the world coming through on this southern border,” Mr. DeSantis said. “They know all you got to do is show up on the border and you’re going to get a ticket to come into the interior of the United States.”
Mr. DeSantis met with residents in border communities around Eagle Pass before heading on Tuesday to New Hampshire, an early primary state.
The visit is part of a pivot for Mr. DeSantis, who is trying to catch Mr. Trump in early primary polls and look ahead to a potential matchup with Mr. Biden.
“During the first month of his campaign, Ron DeSantis has focused on highlighting how his success in Florida proves that the nation’s current state of decline is a choice and that America can do better,” DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said in an email to reporters.
Moving forward, he said, Mr. DeSantis “will begin to take more direct aim at Joe Biden’s failures and will start laying out a forward-looking vision full of solutions.”
Mr. DeSantis told his Texas audience that, as president, he would “fully deputize” all state and local governments to enforce immigration rules.
“If the feds have the responsibility to do immigration and they decide to just not do it, are we just helpless, and we don’t have the laws enforced at all?” Mr. DeSantis said. “You will be able to have that authority.”
Mr. DeSantis also pledged to crack down on sanctuary states and cities that refuse to notify immigration officials when an illegal immigrant is returned from prison to communities. He panned Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, for panicking when he sent 50 migrants to the tony island even though border towns see a constant influx of illegal immigration through their backyards.
Democratic leaders from California to New York have blasted border states for sending migrants to their cities and even threatened criminal investigations.
“Governor DeSantis has proven that he’s willing to stand up and fight,” Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican who endorsed Mr. DeSantis, said in an introduction in Eagle Pass.
Beyond the Biden administration, the Florida governor is taking shots at Mr. Trump for making big pledges on immigration but failing to finish the job. Last week, Mr. Trump promised to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship.
“Trump made this same promise in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020. He had 4 years as president. But he didn’t actually do it,” the DeSantis team tweeted.
Mr. DeSantis did not attack Mr. Trump by name during the event but his campaign alluded to Mr. Trump’s incomplete border wall.
“As president, Ron DeSantis will build the wall. No excuses,” the campaign said.
Although 458 miles of new fence panels were erected before Mr. Trump left office, just 69 miles had all of the components that the Border Patrol had planned, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.
The border wall was the signature promise of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, though the contours of his vision changed. His idea of a sea-to-sea concrete barrier became a 700- to 900-mile fence of steel bollards, which allow visibility but are relatively difficult to breach.
“We want results. We don’t want hollow rhetoric. We don’t want empty promises,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We’re going to marshal every bit of authority that we have. We’ll work with Congress when we need to, we’ll take executive action when we can.”
The Trump campaign pushed back Monday by pointing to past comments in which Mr. DeSantis said the border mess was the result of Mr. Biden abandoning Trump policies. It also pointed to polling that suggests voters trust Mr. Trump the most on immigration issues.
The back-and-forth is part of a broader feud between the ex-president and Mr. DeSantis. Both men will be campaigning in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Mr. Trump has said his endorsement helped Mr. DeSantis win Florida and the governor’s presidential campaign is destined to fail.
“He was a very unskilled politician. What I did for him was ’artificial’ inflation of his numbers,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “He is now proving to be unskilled yet again. Also, disloyalty has a price!”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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