Florida's Latest News

Nunez Named FIU Interim President

The Florida International University Board of Trustees on Friday approved appointing Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nunez as the school’s interim president, setting the stage for Gov. Ron DeSantis to choose a new lieutenant governor.

Nunez, a Miami Republican who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees at FIU, called the selection an honor.

“As a two-time alumna and a proud Panther mom, I am deeply committed to the success of FIU,” Nunez posted on X. “I look forward to working with the Board of Trustees in the coming days.”

Nunez still needs to work out contract details with trustees Chairman Roger Tovar, with the appointment expected to take effect Feb. 17. Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday he supported the appointment, as it was something Nunez was interested in doing.

Kenneth Jessell, who has served as FIU’s president since 2022, will remain at the Miami university as senior vice president and chief administrative officer. Under rules of the state university system’s Board of Governors, FIU will have to conduct a search for a permanent president.

Gov. DeSantis gives state troopers more power to work with ICE

DeSantis said Florida is one of the first states to reach such an agreement with the federal government.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Florida has reached an agreement with Homeland Security to expand Florida Highway Patrol troopers’ powers to act as immigrant enforcement officers in some capacities.

“We need to be willing partners with the federal administration,” DeSantis said Friday at a Tallahassee press conference. “We have to step up and do our part.”

DeSantis called it a “deputization of state enforcement entities.”

Under ICE’s direction and oversight, the nearly 2,000 state troopers will be allowed to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants caught entering the country as well as interrogate people suspected of being in the country illegally. 

ICE can also partner with state and local law enforcement agencies to deport undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and have committed crimes, DeSantis said.

Donald Trump taps cops for immigration enforcement. Florida leads the way.

New approaches align with those Sunshine State leaders want.

Under President Donald Trump, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reviving and expanding a decades-old program that trains local law officers to interrogate immigrants in their custody and detain them for potential deportation. The 287(g) program — named for a section of the 1996 law that created it — currently applies only to those already jailed or imprisoned on charges.

But Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, recently told sheriffs that he wants to expand it to include local task forces that can make arrests on the streets, reviving a model that former President Barack Obama discontinued amid concerns about racial profiling. It’s unclear whether that could allow local officers to stop people solely to check their immigration status.

On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Highway Patrol had struck an agreement with ICE to interrogate, arrest and detain immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and deliver them to federal authorities.

The arrangement will help “fulfill the president’s mission to effectuate the largest deportation program in American history,” DeSantis said.

Inspired by Elon Musk and Donald Trump, two Republicans want to deregulate Florida agencies

The lawmakers said their bill is supported by the Cicero Institute, a Texan billionaire-backed think tank.

Inspired by Elon Musk and President Donald Trump cutting the fat in federal government, a pair of Republican lawmakers said they want to get rid of red tape in Florida, too. Their new bill would deregulate the state by expiring many agencies’ rules after eight years unless they get readopted and would make it easier for people to challenge the state’s rules in court.

“With more than 170,000 regulatory restrictions, Florida ranks 11th nationally in bureaucratic burden — putting it in the company of high-regulation states like New York and California,” said a joint press release put out by Sen. Danny Burgess and Rep. Tiffany Esposito.

Burgess and Esposito’s legislation (SB 448/HB 305) would exempt the rules from ending in eight years if agencies are required to comply with federal law or receive federal money, or if they are rules under agencies run by elected officials or rules set from authority in the state constitution.

“An agency may not adopt any rule or issue any guidance document unless the agency has been expressly granted the power to do so by a specific statutory delegation,” the bill also outlines.