Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he knows who’s responsible for the turmoil surrounding President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota, which has resulted in the fatal shootings of two American citizens by federal agents.

DeSantis pointed a finger of responsibility at Gov. Tim Walz, of Minnesota, and Mayor Jacob Frey, of Minneapolis, for what is happening there.

He faulted them for fomenting opposition to federal immigration enforcement efforts there, and contrasted what he said they’re doing with the crackdown he’s pushed in Florida.

“What we’re not doing is what you have people like Walz and this mayor doing, which is basically trying to sabotage the enforcement operations. They’re creating a toxic environment, where they’re really inciting people to go out and show hostility to the agents who are doing this. That is not a recipe for success. That is not the way that you do business, and so we’re going to continue with positive cooperation. It certainly made a difference here in Florida,” DeSantis said.

Walz and Frey have decried federal agencies’ tactics, called for the federal government to stand down, urged people to protest peacefully, and have been thwarted in their attempts to have state and local law enforcement investigate the killings by federal agents instead of having the federal government investigate itself.

The governor didn’t address the shooting of Renee Good by an Immigrations and Customs officer on Jan. 7 or the shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol officer on Saturday.

DeSantis brought up immigration and what’s happening in Minnesota at the beginning of an event in The Villages at which he, his wife, Casey DeSantis, and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo discussed healthy and harmful foods, focusing on candy. (“My kids would be upset if there was something wrong with Reese’s cups,” the governor said, adding that they are OK.)

The Governor’s Office billed the event as a press conference, but he didn’t take questions. “We’ve gotta run,” he said at the end. “I wish I could stay longer.”

At their own video news conference on Monday, top Democrats in the Florida House of Representatives decried what’s happening in Minnesota.

“In Minneapolis, it’s nothing less than criminal what’s happening. And, yes, it could happen in Florida because of the lack of leadership that we have with Ron DeSantis and his (political) ambitions,” said state Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Palm Beach County, the Democratic policy chair.

“None of this is OK,” said House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa.

“It’s been on all of our hearts,” Driskell said. “We’re heartbroken over this, that our hearts go out to Minneapolis as we’re watching what is happening there, and I got to say that this is not what people signed up for. Even people who wanted to be quote unquote tough on immigration did not sign up to see Americans gunned down in the street.”

Driskell said more oversight of immigration is essential. “We’ve got to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. It shouldn’t happen to any American citizen. Frankly, it shouldn’t happen to anybody.

“No one agency is judge, jury, and executioner, and so we’ve got to bring things back from the brink. We’ve got to cool the temperature down. We’ve got to focus on policies for immigration that work. But we have to remember who we are as a country. At our core, we actually are a nation of immigrants, and what I have been seeing has been so cruel and so inhumane and just the dehumanizing of immigrants and frankly of Americans who are there just to bear witness and to watch what’s happening and to make sure that the law is followed,” she said.

Driskell said the kind of massive federal immigration enforcement effort that’s going on in Minnesota could result in the same kind of violence if it were replicated in Florida.

“If this can happen in Main Street in Minnesota, it can happen anywhere in our country, and this is why we should all be so very concerned,” she said. “Minnesota-style chaos here would be deadly. It would be awful.”

At his event, DeSantis touted Florida’s efforts to assist federal immigration enforcement in the year since President Donald Trump took office.

“It was very important that all state and local law enforcement would cooperate with (the Department of Homeland Security) with respect to enforcing immigration laws,” DeSantis said.

He said illegal border crossings needed to be stopped and also a need “to repatriate folks that had come illegally and so we did that.” DeSantis and the Florida Legislature synched Florida Highway Patrol operations with immigration enforcement and ordered local police departments and sheriff’s offices to cooperate.

The result, DeSantis said, in about the last 10 months is “almost 20,000 illegal alien apprehensions, and that’s over and above what DHS would be doing, you know, on their own. But people are working together, because we understand, you know, we have a responsibility to ensure, you know, that the laws are enforced.”

And, he said, “we’re going to continue with our positive cooperation” and contrasted with what he said happened elsewhere. “I think it’s a very hostile situation that’s been created and, and that’s not the way to do business and, and that’s not what we want to see,” he said. “People want to see an orderly society, they want to see the rules enforced, they want to see people working together and that’s what you’re seeing in the Free State of Florida.”

Several Republican elected officials from other states have called for a more extensive investigation of federal immigration activities even as top Trump administration officials have defended the government’s actions and blamed Good and Pretti for the incidents that led to their deaths.

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