Byron Donalds is the front-runner to be Florida's next governor. Over the weekend, at a campaign rally in Tampa, he told the Florida Phoenix what he plans to do with the job.

"If we have local officials decide that they want to ignore federal immigration law and the laws of the state of Florida and create sanctuaries, they'll be removed from office, as well."

He said the same about prosecutors:

"If you have a state attorney that is not prosecuting the law and enforcing the law, they're going to be removed from office, because it destabilizes law and order in safe communities in our state."

Two promises, one idea: if you are elected by your neighbors and you disagree with Byron Donalds, he will overrule your neighbors.

The part he left out

Here is the detail that makes the immigration promise more than tough talk — it is a threat aimed at something people are not actually required to do.

Florida passed a law in 2025 requiring county sheriffs and chief correctional officers running county jails to sign 287(g) agreements with ICE. Those are the deals that let local officers act as immigration agents.

That law covers sheriffs and jails. It does not cover city officials. Several Florida cities have chosen not to sign, which is their right.

And this is not a matter of interpretation. When the city of South Miami went to court a year ago to get clarity, attorneys representing the state told the judge that municipalities are not required by law to enter 287(g) agreements, as WLRN reported.

Florida's own lawyers said it in a courtroom. Donalds is promising to remove officials for doing the thing the state's attorneys conceded they are allowed to do.

This is already happening

Donalds is not proposing something new. He is promising more of it.

Attorney General James Uthmeier — a former DeSantis chief of staff who was placed in the job by the governor — has spent the past 18 months threatening city officials in Fort Myers, Key West, Tampa, and Orlando with removal because they acted or spoke about loosening their 287(g) agreements.

Notice "or spoke about." Officials have been threatened for discussing a policy change.

Meanwhile in Miami, Mayor Eileen Higgins campaigned on revisiting the city's 287(g) agreement and says she intends to keep that promise. In St. Petersburg, mayoral candidate Charlie Crist said he would consider ending the city's agreement: "I'm not a fan of ICE. I'm a fan of enforcing the law but not murdering fellow Americans."

Those are people running for local office on a local question, in front of local voters. Donalds' answer is that the governor should be able to erase that election result.

This is the same administration-wide approach we have covered before — the Justice Department has filed 27 lawsuits against more than 20 cities, counties, and states over sanctuary policies, including one to stop Philadelphia from barring ICE agents from wearing masks.

"Soros prosecutors"

On prosecutors, Donalds was blunter:

"We're not going to tolerate that the way that they've done in these blue states. That's one of the reasons why people are coming into our state. Because they want to be safe. So, we're not going to ask some state attorney who's going to go rogue and follow [George] Soros and the DSA thinking that they're not going to uphold Florida law."

Florida has run this experiment, and the results are on the record.

Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended two elected Democratic state attorneys — Andrew Warren of Hillsborough County in 2022 and Monique Worrell of Orange and Osceola counties in 2023 — and replaced them with prosecutors he had appointed to judgeships.

Warren was suspended after pledging not to prosecute people seeking abortions or gender-affirming care for minors. He sued. In January 2023, a federal judge ruled that DeSantis violated the First Amendment in removing him — that the suspension was over political differences and the "political benefit" the governor expected. The judge said he lacked the power to put Warren back. An appeals panel said the judge should reconsider; the DeSantis administration appealed; and after Warren's term ran out, the same panel ruled the case moot.

Worrell went to court too, and then went to the voters. She returned to office in 2024, winning re-election by more than 15 points.

That is what "removed from office" looks like in practice: a court finding a constitutional violation, and voters reinstating the prosecutor the governor threw out. Donalds is running on doing it again.

Who actually decides

Strip away the language about Soros and rogue prosecutors and the question is simple. Who gets to pick a city commissioner, a sheriff, a state attorney?

Under Donalds' answer, the voters pick, and then the governor decides whether that choice stands.

It also fits a pattern with him. A Collier County school board member has sued Donalds, saying he cornered her in a grocery store and threatened to "crush" or "finish" her after she crossed him. Donalds' campaign called the suit a political stunt.

Florida families worried about insurance bills, housing costs, and utility rates are getting a governor's race in which the front-runner's signature promise is a bigger stick to use on other elected officials.

The people he is promising to remove were elected by Floridians too.

Source

Byron Donalds says he'll remove local officials who indulge in 'sanctuary' policies by Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix, August 12, 2026. Photo: Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix.