JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis visited Jacksonville Thursday, speaking on a range of topics, but emphasizing his plans for immigration going into the state legislature’s special session next week. 

DeSantis called for the special session to discuss President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Legislative leaders pushed back, calling the move premature, but as Trump has already introduced sweeping executive orders, DeSantis now says he is confident in his call to meet.

The governor was joined by Sheriff T.K. Waters as he declared he would work to enforce any federal laws on immigration coming to the state of Florida.

Waters pledged that the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office would back up the governor.

He said he thinks “illegal” immigration is an issue in the city. “It’s not immigration,” he stressed. “It’s illegal immigration that’s the problem.” 

In terms of enforcing immigration policy to come, Waters said, “I’m ready and I stand firm. I’m ready. I’m a man of very few words — more action than words. I have zero tolerance for people that want to hurt members of our community. We have a beautiful city here. We’re going to take care of our city, we’re going to take care of our citizens.” 

He praised DeSantis, calling him the “best governor in the entire country,” and saying that he trusts the legislature to guide law enforcement.

“I’m thankful that we have a strong legislature we have the best government in the entire country, and I know that what what needs to get done is going to get done,” Waters said.

Waters also spoke about concerns about cartel-related drug crimes.

He told reporters last week that a drug bust by JSO and the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office could have involved cartel members. During the press conference Thursday, he recalled: “We just did a huge takedown of a major drug organization here in our county, where two kilos of fentanyl were taken off of our streets, enough to kill a couple million people, but not just that, 76 kg of cocaine, um, just recently before that, there was another one where we did the new generation Mexican drug cartel was involved. This last one was the Gulf Cartel.” 

“Gangs used to be very domestic, but now you’re seeing a lot of these foreign gangs,” DeSantis said on the issue. “We think there needs to be additions to the definition to ‘gang-related activities’ particularly geared toward illegal alien gangs.”