>> This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, Saint Petersburg.

Sarasota.

>> Right now on WEDU.

Undocumented immigrants are rounded up in Florida.

anti-Trump demonstrations take place across the state.

The governor reveals his budget priorities for the coming fiscal year, including spending more money on education and a big boost in school vouchers.

And Pam Bondi becomes the new U.S. Attorney General.

All coming up next on Florida This Week.

Welcome back.

The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, or Ice, reported the nationwide detention so far of almost 8800 Hundred undocumented immigrants and the deportation of about 5700 immigrants.

In the first two weeks of President Donald Trump's second term.

That's a lower number per day of detentions and deportations than under the Biden administration last year.

In the fiscal year 2025, the average was 856 per day.

As of November 30th, they are now reporting 407 per day.

In the last two weeks, according to the Cato Institute, the Trump administration has been trying to heavily publicize these roundups, inviting network TV cameras to accompany some raids and sending the head of the Department of Homeland Security on others.

Here in Florida, arrests have been made in at least 12 counties.

Some of those arrested have been charged with serious crimes such as murder, sexual assault of a minor, assault with a deadly weapon, money laundering, and illegal drug possession.

Others were arrested for less serious crimes, such as operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver's license.

And joining us now to talk about what's happened this week is Thomas Kennedy from the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

He was born in Argentina.

He came to the U.S. with his parents at the age of ten, first living in New Jersey before settling down in Miami.

And after living as an undocumented immigrant for more than a decade, Tomas became involved in student activism.

He graduated as an international relations major from Florida International University.

Thomas Kennedy, welcome to the program.

>> Thank you for the invitation.

Do we know how extensive the raids have been in Florida?

I mentioned 12 counties.

Is that the same number that you're hearing?

Yeah, we're hearing similar numbers.

You know, we've we've heard of rates in Miami-Dade County all over the county.

I mean, even in areas where, you know, traditionally we've never seen immigration enforcement in a large scale before, you know, very wealthy areas like like Cocoplum, for example, we've seen immigration enforcement in areas of Broward in in the Tampa area, even in the north part of the of the state.

Right.

Leon County in Tallahassee.

We've heard of immigration enforcement operations.

So they seem to be pretty widespread.

And, um, and I think the counties that you listed are more or less accurate.

And are the people being rounded up?

Are they all criminals?

Definitely not.

We are seeing, um, a lot of people that are getting, uh, swept up in these operations.

What Tom Homan, the borders are under Trump called collateral damage, right?

That's how they refer to these human beings.

Just this week, we've heard that, uh, you know, and of course, I'm not going to use names, but, uh, someone's nanny was, uh, ambushed in her driveway, and her and her husband were detained.

Ultimately, she wasn't taken because they had small children with them, but her husband was detained, you know, in in Miami-Dade, you know, we've seen, uh, spouses of of U.S. citizens, uh, detained, we've seen, uh, workers, you know, in, in private establishments.

There was a high profile case that's all over the news today in Miami-Dade yesterday of a middle school teacher that was detained, not at the school when I clarified that, but during their immigration hearing, because they have DACA Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects them from deportation and grants them a work permit.

Theoretically and technically, really.

But for some reason, this individual was detained.

The Trump administration has moved to remove temporary protected status from some groups, including Venezuelans.

What's been the reaction in Miami of the Venezuelan community that they're now more are are eligible for deportation?

Yeah, I think, you know, and I don't want to speak for the whole community because I am not Venezuelan.

But my sense is that a lot of them do feel betrayed.

And in fact, uh, Venezuelan activists had a press conference a couple of days ago where they expressed that sentiment.

Right.

I mean, this designation protected 250,000 Venezuelans under TPS.

And there's another designation that protects 300,000 Venezuelans that, you know, it's expected to be rescinded by the Trump administration.

And the way that the administration did it is particularly offensive.

They're justifying it by saying that most of these Venezuelans are members of a transnational gang called Aragua.

That's been sensationalized to basically propagate this anti-immigrant talking points.

But, you know, TPS recipients have to apply and then be vetted by the US government to get the that that benefit, that protection.

And they have to show good character and substantial criminal.

Right.

So the US government has determined that these individuals are not criminals.

Right.

So it's really offensive and bizarre that claims that the Trump administration is making over this extremely large population.

There's some debate in Tallahassee about how many farmworkers here in Florida are undocumented.

The governor has said that Florida farmers have an affinity for cheap, illegal foreign labor.

But the farm the farming community says they rarely hire undocumented immigrants.

Wondering what is your take?

Are there raids being conducted in Florida's farmlands and are undocumented immigrants being arrested there?

We've heard of some operations happening in rural areas.

Nothing incredibly widespread as of now, but I do want to clarify.

37 to 47% of Florida's agricultural workforce in the fields, meaning the people that are harvesting our crops are noncitizens.

That's the reality of it.

If even a portion, a significant portion of that, almost half of our agricultural workforce is disrupted, that means higher prices for consumers in our supermarket.

It means disrupted supply chains.

So that is that is the reality of how our economy works.

And the farming community, though, says most of the farm workers they have who are not U.S. citizens are hired through the H-2a program, that they come here legally.

Yeah, a significant portion of them are.

But the reality is a lot of them are non-citizens, and a lot of them are undocumented.

And I think most people know that, you know, like, that's pretty common knowledge.

Well, Tomas.

Tomas Kennedy, thanks a lot.

Thanks for coming on the program.

No, thank you for the invitation.

Appreciate it.

We're joined now by Deveron Gibbons.

He's a businessman, a vice chair and trustee at Saint Petersburg College and FAMU, and a Republican.

April Schiff is a political consultant and the Hillsborough Republican State Committeewoman.

Rochelle Rebak is a retired attorney, the host of WMNF radio's Midpoint Wednesday Show and a Democrat.

And Alan Cohen is a journalist and a Democrat.

Nice to have you all here.

Nice to see.

>> You.

Thank you.

Good to be here.

Well, I want to ask you about what you heard, Thomas Kennedy.

Tell us just a moment ago about undocumented or Undocument, undocumented people being rounded up.

In April, let me go to you.

What was your take on what Thomas told us?

Well, I thought it was interesting.

I mean, I think that there's two sides to every story, right?

And I think that what we've seen over the last several weeks since the new administration came in is an implementation of campaign promises.

And I think you're going to see that continue.

It happened in his first term.

It's going to happen in his second term.

The state of Florida has been very strong in supporting the immigration reforms.

And I think you're going to see a solid immigration reform bill come out of the state legislature that's going to be implemented across the state of Florida, and we're going to see a lot of changes and a lot of differences.

We already do.

And part of this is negotiation and style and how to get to where you want to be at the end of the day.

What we've already seen since Inauguration Day, January 20th is a huge decline in illegals coming across the borders all across the United States.

And that was the goal.

And so we're already accomplishing the goals that were set out by this president and this administration, which we have not seen during the Biden administration in the last four years, has been tremendous.

That was number.

One, number one campaign.

Promise.

Yeah.

And he will stick up to his campaign promises.

He has proven that in his track record.

And that's what he's doing today.

His method may not be what everybody approves of, but at the end of the day, he's going to accomplish his goals.

Shelley, what do you think of what Thomas Kennedy told us?

>> I think that the idea of mass deportations is largely a fiction.

Deportations have been at levels that are comparable to the Biden administration.

The numbers were reduced at the border during the Biden administration.

It's nothing new right now, except for the sensationalization of the concept of mass deportation.

Yesterday, South Florida teachers unions had a press conference announcing that there have been no Ice raids in Florida schools, for example.

And U.S. immigration, according to the Guardian, is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations.

Thousands of press releases about decades old enforcement actions have topped the Google search results, but they are all updated with a time stamp after Trump's inauguration.

So this is this is a big PR campaign in order to engender fear in the immigrant community.

But is it really happening?

I don't think so.

Not yet anyway.

Devin, I was struck by the fact that some of these folks are criminals.

They're being, you know, murderers, people that have committed assault.

But some of these folks have driver's license offenses.

A teacher who is going through the process, as Tomas Kennedy told us of DACA, was was arrested at her hearing.

So some of these folks don't appear to be these hardened criminals that are being rounded up.

>> That may very well be true, but illegal is illegal, right?

There's no substitute for the law.

Ignorance of the law is not a is not a defense.

I I learned that in law school right away.

Right.

And so just because you don't know something doesn't mean that you can use it as a defense.

I will tell you, as April said earlier, um, it quite frankly boils down to this.

The guy made some campaign promises.

He's holding to those promises.

Um, whether you agree with them or not, I think when people make promises on the campaign trail, you've got to listen to them.

And now he's carrying them out.

I will tell you, the only thing that I.

And I think Florida will figure this out, right.

Florida has done a pretty good job of figuring it out.

Our state relies on agriculture a lot, and quite frankly, we're going to figure out how to have a fine balance of who needs to be here and who doesn't.

What do you think of what we heard there, Dick?

>> It doesn't solve any real problems.

All they are doing is pandering to people's, uh, fears and distrust of immigrants.

And they're doing it because they don't have answers to the actual, real problems that Americans face.

And I brought art.

I want to share it with you.

If you're talking about the real problems that that Americans face, it's this.

It's productivity and and wages.

And you could see in around 1970 our parents generations.

The reason why they did so well is because as productivity improved, so did their pay.

But at some point, corporations made the decision that productivity can rise, but wages don't have to rise.

Republicans don't have an answer for this issue.

I don't know if they care to.

So what they do is they distract people from their concerns and point to the boogeyman and the boogeyman are immigrants.

And what we're about here is not solving any real problems, even causing more problems, because as the gentleman that you interviewed said, 30 to 40% of of crops in Florida are picked by immigrants.

You have the citrus industry, which is on its deathbed in Florida because of agricultural issues, but also labor issues and.

But that is really not as important as as making a point.

And that's what this administration is doing.

I would agree with your with your your board where I disagree is a good friend of mine.

God bless his soul.

Ambassador Mel Sembler once said to me, the problem with America is not the wages, it's not the people.

It is that we don't produce anything of substance anymore.

You remember when Samsung now makes television, but you remember zenith.

That was a good American company, and I can point to so many other things that are no longer made in the USA.

Was it to move American manufacturing offshore to places like China?

Some of the.

Companies.

Sometimes they were forced to do that because taxes got high.

It costs so much to pay people.

So there's a lot of different reasons why companies had to.

And quite frankly, when products are coming from other places and they're cheaper.

So should we reduce.

Taxes and wages to the levels of developing nations.

No, I didn't say that.

But what I will say is that remember, when we produce something, it's going to cost a little more.

So we should push American products and that would stop some of that.

Absolutely.

Okay.

There were some peaceful anti-Trump protests in Tallahassee, Jacksonville, south Florida and Tampa this week.

The activists showed their anger at the immigration raids, cuts to federal departments and to billionaire Elon Musk.

Here's what three demonstrators told Wfts-tv in Tampa on Wednesday.

>> We need to resist.

We need to fight back.

It just makes me so proud to be part of this.

Look at our our little Tampa.

Do I think government has waste?

Of course.

But you go in and you try to make a difference, and you look at all the different roles of education.

>> We came here over here to support our families, to support our friends, to support everyone that is dealing with this right now.

People are afraid.

People are scared.

Shelley.

For a while, Democrats have been pretty quiet.

But it looks like at least here in Here in Florida for significant demonstrations this week against the Trump policies.

Well, better late than never.

You know, as our great political philosopher Mike Tyson once said, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face.

And I think that this, you know, deluge of chaos that has been coming out of this administration since the inauguration was a punch in the face, especially for the people in Congress who it took a while for them to realize that Republicans were actually going to follow through with the goals of project 2025, which Trump had disavowed throughout his campaign.

I think they really did not plan for the lawless rampage of Trump and his unelected co-president, Elon Musk.

They didn't plan for it.

But now, you know, shutting down a federal agency that Congress has formalized and funded, or ending birthright citizenship by presidential fiat.

These actions are so blatantly Constitutional that they were a sucker punch in the face.

And Democrats, you know, who were unprepared to meet the moment, have now put on their shoes and gotten gotten ready to to take care of business.

April, has President Trump acted in an unconstitutional fashion.

That I'm not a constitutional lawyer, so I am not going to comment on that.

But I can tell you one thing.

It's just like I said before, he told the American public what he was going to do.

He was overwhelmingly elected to serve as president of the United States based on what he said he was going to do if the Democrats weren't ready, then they need to wake up, because it was pretty obvious that he was going to come in day one, start making these changes.

And one of the big things he said, we're going to look at is spending.

And if you continue to watch, you are going to see some of the most outrageous things that money out of the federal government is being spent on.

And let me tell you something.

I keep hearing federal funding.

Well, federal funding is tax money out of your pocket and my pocket.

There are no are no federal dollars that didn't come out of our pockets.

Okay, so it needs to stop, and we need to take care of our own.

We need to make sure that this company, this country is thriving.

That the economy gets back in shape so that people can afford to put food on their table for their families.

And this government will do that.

The the spending is out of control.

And I think you're going to see that.

And, you know, he hired somebody to do the job.

It doesn't matter if it's Elon Musk or somebody else.

He hired someone who he felt was capable.

No, he he has the right to hire people to do jobs.

And that's what he has done here.

Elon Musk was not elected by the people.

No.

He was hired by the president of the United States of America.

Was not he was not elected.

There's no accountability for what Elon Musk is doing.

And I was a constitutional lawyer.

And the court I think the constitutional lawyers in this country have been the only ones right now with a plan.

They were ready from day one.

They've been filing lawsuits, and each and every one has been successful in ruling that this, uh, this deluge of lawless activity by Elon Musk at the president's instigation is unconstitutional.

And we'll see what happens as these cases move through the courts.

Beyond the lowest.

Level, this is not finalized.

And this this government is going to move forward under the Trump administration to accomplish the goals that he set out to accomplish.

I want to ask you what April said.

She said that federal spending is out of control.

This is the way to to get federal spending under control.

USAID is like 1% of the federal budget.

Um, but but is this the way to get federal spending under control?

I would say you have to look at it.

And I think you got to take it at some point.

Nobody's ever attacked this and never looked at this problem and said the spending is out of control.

Where do we start?

USAID is a good example to me, Rob, and I'll tell you why.

We have people that are on the streets here that are not receiving any aid from the federal government.

But we are all over the world, right?

Taking care of everybody else's citizens, that's important.

But I think it's more important when we have veterans on the street and other people that are on the street who can't afford to have anywhere to live.

Should we increase aid to homeless people, to veterans here?

I think we should.

I think that I think.

I think President Trump is going to do.

That.

I'm not sure about whether President Trump will do that.

I don't know if that's on his agenda.

But I will tell you, you have to start somewhere.

I run a business.

I have run businesses.

You go in, you assess, you figure out what you have to do, you cut and then you move on and try to make your business successful.

Al, what do you think?

You know, this protest and the others around the country show how angry Democrats are.

But what Democrats have to do, and the only thing that they should be doing is coming up with an economic message, because Democrats care about what the families are able to afford, sending their kids to schools and clothes and health care.

And it's important that we stick on that economic message, because if we do so, we're the ones who will be talking about how to improve the lives of million Americans.

But while Republicans and this incredible show that is going on right now are taking apart any semblance of our government and not really solving any real issues.

>> What do you think about.

What Ron said, though, is that Americans really don't want their money sent overseas.

They don't like foreign aid.

We should cater to the people here at home, like the homeless or the veterans.

Then I should quote our great brand new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who during his Senate career has talked about the importance of foreign aid, about the importance of of gaining allies and friends and having people in the worst conditions around the world saying that our lives were saved.

My children's life was saved because of America.

And if we end that, then we are increasing the the, the distrust and the hate for America around the world.

And that is not in our national security interest.

Governor Ron DeSantis released his proposed education budget this week, and despite asking for an historic $29.7 billion for K-12 education, advocates say it's not enough.

DeSantis has asked for a record 1.5 billion for teacher pay, an increase of about 246 million.

He's also asked for about 1.7 billion for early childhood education.

Teacher advocates like Andrew Spar, the director of the state's largest teachers union, the Florida Education Association, are concerned that the budget only increases per pupil spending by about 2% per child at a time of record inflation.

Spar said he's also worried that $3 billion of the budget is earmarked for the state's universal voucher program, which he said siphons money away from the state's public schools.

He also says the impacts of underfunding and understaffing public schools can be seen in the in the recent Nations Report card, in which students math and English scores in Florida plummeted to the lowest they've been in more than 20 years.

So, Alan, in the last fiscal year, we had nearly 10,000 vacancies for public school teachers and staff around Florida.

Does this help reduce that vacancy?

This is the dumbing down of America.

I mean, we also don't teach civics in our classrooms.

So these young children don't know what government is and how it impacts their lives and why they should care about it.

And I find it really interesting.

We're not funding public education well enough in Florida yet.

The governor is also proposing a a Second Amendment summer, a sales tax holiday, so people don't have to pay taxes on buying guns and ammunition.

So let's save $8 million right there while our kids and our teachers don't have what they need in our public schools.

This is like the.

Fifth year in a row.

I think that the governor has tried to increase funding for public education and education in general.

April.

Yes, he has, he has.

And this, this budget that he released that he proposed last week includes strong funding for VPK voluntary pre-kindergarten as well as school readiness, the Early Learning Coalition.

So we know that children who begin their education long before they get to kindergarten are going to be much more successful.

And this budget also includes $10 million dedicated to civics education, because there's a strong push to put civics back into the schools so that people understand how the government works and why it's beneficial to participate.

Why should you vote?

They're going to learn that in these civics classes, and they're taking out a lot of things that that they really don't need to be teaching students.

There's also a huge amount of money in here for workforce education, so that those students who are not college bound can come out of high school and go to work productively.

Shelly.

Does this help with our education vacancies?

Well, you know where we are now with these terrible results from testing for math and reading from our public school students, is a result of the systematic underfunding of public education ever since Jeb Bush was governor, and it's now coming home to roost.

And also note that with all this money going into private charter schools from our tax dollars, those charter schools are not required to test students in the same way that the public school students are tested.

So there's really very little accountability for the money that's going into the charter school system.

We don't know how those students are doing, but we do know that there are a lot of Republicans making a lot of money from our tax dollars in the charter school system.

So Tampa resident, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was confirmed this week as the nation's attorney general.

As Politico reports, she jumped right in, issuing 14 first aid directives.

Among them, Bondi ordered the department to set up a task force to examine the weaponization of the Justice Department and rein in investigations into foreign influence.

She also warned career lawyers at her agency not to try to thwart Trump administration policies.

Bondy directed the weaponization group to investigate former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the two federal criminal cases against Trump, one over Trump's role in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the other on Trump's mishandling of classified documents.

And she directed the group to examine federal cooperation with the offices of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Bragg's office brought the criminal hush money case against Trump that ended in his conviction on 34 felony counts of business fraud.

James brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and his family business that resulted in a judge ordering Trump to pay a massive civil judgment.

And I hate to say it, we're out of time.

We can't even go on.

But thank you for watching.

We'll see you next week.