DeSantis debuts sweeping border plan and vows to go beyond Trump: 'No excuses'

EAGLE PASS, Texas — 2024 Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) debuted an extensive plan to regain control of the U.S.-Mexico border and vowed to go beyond anything that former President Donald Trump had done.

DeSantis announced a comprehensive strategy titled "No Excuses," comprised of four pillars: Stop the invasion, build the wall, hold cartels accountable, and work with states to enforce the law.

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"What we're saying is, no excuses on this — get the job done. Make it happen. We want results. We don't want hollow rhetoric. We don't want empty promises," DeSantis said before roughly 150 attendees. "So when we go in on day one, 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. It will be a day one priority, and you're going to see a big change very, very quickly."

In a town hall-style setting where voters sat just a few feet from DeSantis, the Florida governor outlined his plan to voters and said he would go beyond what Trump had promised and failed to deliver.

The first bullet point on the plan to stop the "invasion" was to end the catch-and-release policy, short for how the United States releases immigrants into the country after they have come across the border illegally.

Trump left the White House having failed to keep one of his biggest campaign promises: to build 1,000 miles of border wall for $4 billion and get Mexico to pay for it.

During the Trump era, 738 miles of wall, technology, roads, and lighting were funded for $15.5 billion, and of that, more than 450 miles had been installed on the U.S.-Mexico border since Trump took office in January 2017.

DeSantis cited 600 miles of "open" border and said he would focus wall-building efforts on those areas.

Third, DeSantis will declare Mexican drug cartels to be transnational criminal organizations and authorize sanctions on all syndicates involved in the smuggling of people, drugs, and guns.

A DeSantis White House would enhance penalties for those who smuggle fentanyl, as well as those American citizens who work with the cartels. 

DeSantis would allow states to uphold their Article I authority to defend themselves from an invasion, further broadening the steps that they can take to respond to the situation at the southern border, where more than 5 million people have crossed illegally since 2021.

Sanctuary zones would face penalties for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration laws and lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

"Some of the sanctuary stuff they do is a lot of virtue signaling, right?" DeSantis said, getting a round of applause when he mentioned having transported 50 illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, last summer. "I mean, they started doing it a lot under the Trump administration. And I think it was a way for them to say, 'Oh, you know, we're, we're fighting, fighting the power on all this stuff.' ... We have a program to offer the transport to sanctuary jurisdictions in Florida."

DeSantis teased a preview of the plan Sunday evening, posting a video to Twitter that outlined the border, cartel, wall, and invasion pillars.

DeSantis's stalwart approach was an effort to "get to the right of Trump," according to Republican political consultant in Texas Luke Macias.

Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican operative in Texas and partner at Austin-based public affairs firm Steinhauser Strategies, agreed that DeSantis is trying to position himself as the better border security candidate.

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DeSantis vowed in an interview published Monday that his "No. 1" priority as president would be to "shut down" the border on his first day in office, declare a national emergency, and "build a border wall."

Texas has spent more than $4 billion on border security efforts over the past two years and is quick to tout the number of illegal immigrants that state police have arrested and the pounds of drugs seized from smugglers. But those accomplishments have not resolved the crisis.