Jacksonville leaders slam Mayor Deegan for controversial comments on Trump immigration policy on London radio show
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan faced backlash from Republican city leaders on Wednesday following her comments on a London radio show about the immigration policy proposed by presidential candidate Donald Trump.
During an interview on Times Radio, Mayor Deegan was asked about Trump’s immigration plan and likened it to a “concentration camp type situation.”
Last week, Trump announced that as president he’d launch “Operation Aurora” to focus on deporting members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TDA. This violent gang has origins tracing back more than a decade to an infamously lawless prison with hardened criminals.
Trump also reiterated his pledge to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law permitting the president to deport any noncitizen from a country at war with the U.S. This law has not been used in the United States since World War II and during the War of 1812 prior to that.
“To put people in what would really amount to a concentration camp-type situation to round them out of the country doesn’t seem to me to be a very American thing to do,” Deegan stated during the interview.
The host pointed out that some polls suggest that many Americans support mass deportations. “Across America, there seems to be a very large slice of people, and some, I imagine in your city too, you’ve got a very mixed demographic,” the host commented.
“I’m sure that there would be some people that would probably be for that,” Deegan acknowledged. “I would just say that Jacksonville and the United States as a whole, we are a community and a nation of immigrants. I would hope that people would say, yes, we absolutely must fix the broken immigration system, let’s pass a tough border law, but to put people in what would really amount to a concentration camp type situation, to round them out of the country, doesn’t seem to me to be a very American thing to do.”
“The use of the term concentration camp is loaded. You consider that’s completely justified?” the host inquired.
“What would we call them? If you’re rounding people up and putting them in camps, what? What would we call those? It’s a concentration of people that are in a camp. I’m not suggesting anything beyond that, but I just think it seems rather inhumane to me,” Deegan responded.
Sheriff Waters, a Republican, was among the first to publicly criticize Deegan for her comments in a lengthy statement. “Mayor Deegan’s statement regarding President Trump’s border and immigration policy is shocking and reckless. As the Sheriff of Jacksonville, it’s disappointing to see our Mayor equate a commonsense immigration policy with one of the most horrific atrocities of the 20th century,” Waters expressed.
Multiple Republican members of the Jacksonville City Council also condemned her comments. Councilman Terrance Freeman agreed with the sheriff, labeling Deegan’s comments deeply troubling and calling for her to retract her statements.
“Words matter,” stated Councilman Ron Salem. “In my home and all over the globe, the phrase concentration camp has one meaning: the darkest days in our world’s history that will plague history books for centuries. Comparing illegal immigration policies to the mass annihilation of our Jewish brothers and sisters is grossly inappropriate and should be apologized for.”
However, when asked about the Republican backlash, Deegan stood her ground. “When you flat out call a group of human beings animals and say they are poisoning the blood of our country, then promise to round them up in detention camps, what would lead anyone to believe they’d be treated humanely? The inevitable human rights abuses that would come are un-American and go against our country’s values,” Deegan remarked.
Councilman Jimmy Peluso criticized the Republican response as “fake outrage.” “It’s fake outrage day in Jax! Our Mayor answered a question truthfully; Trump’s immigration plan feels like Japanese internment & local Rs claim it’s a good idea,” Peluso posted.
The Republican nominee for president has long promised to execute the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, with immigration being central to his political identity since his first campaign in 2015. Recently, Trump has highlighted specific smaller communities facing large migrant arrivals, exacerbating tensions over resources and leading some longtime residents to express distrust regarding sudden demographic shifts.
Aurora, Colorado, recently made headlines when a video emerged showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan migrants. Trump has claimed extensively that Venezuelan gangs are taking over buildings, despite officials clarifying that this was limited to a single area of the suburb near Denver, which is now safe.
“We have to clean out our country,” Trump declared. He also revisited the initial controversy of his political career, asserting that migrants are rapists bringing drugs and crime.
“I took a lot of heat for saying it, but I was right,” Trump stated, echoing the debunked claim that other countries are emptying their prisons and mental institutions and offloading their worst criminals onto the United States.
