In a speech to CPAC attendees, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds alluded to President Donald Trump’s endorsement and his gubernatorial ambitions. But the Naples Republican held off on any formal announcement.

“I just want to say, Mr. President, thank you, and I will never let you down,” the Naples Republican said.

While he urged activists to “stay tuned” regarding his future plans, Donalds’ remarks leaned significantly on conservative victories specific to the state of Florida.

“The phrase down in Florida is ‘Make America Florida.’ There’s a reason why citizens have been leaving blue states to go to Florida,” Donalds said. “There’s a reason why people who immigrate legally — and I stress legally — from some of the worst places in the world come to Florida.”

He also praised the leadership of Republicans who have led the state until now, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose wife Casey DeSantis is reportedly also considering running for Governor.

“There’s a reason why students in Florida and parents in Florida have choice at their fingertips to find the best solution for their children. And that reason is because we have leaders who have been committed to the principles of individual liberty and limited government,” Donalds said.

“They have been committed to those same constitutional principles that are the very foundation of the America First movement and our leaders — Gov. DeSantis and before him Gov. (Rick) Scott and all of the men and women who have served in our Legislature, myself included.”

Donalds served two terms in the Florida House before his 2020 election to Congress.

“Let me tell you this, Florida is not going to stop leading,” Donalds said. “We’re going to build off of what we’ve done, and we’re going to continue to lead bigger, better, faster, greater, safer, freer, because the American dream is for everybody, and we’re going to show the other 49 states how to get it done.”

Donalds also took time to share personalizing stories, mentioning that the prior evening he was in Florida to watch his son, Darin, and teammates at First Baptist Academy win a regional basketball championship. He also offered a shoutout to wife Erika Donalds, a school choice advocate recently tapped to chair the America First Policy Institute’s Center for Education Opportunity and its State Chapter.

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Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis will host a fundraiser in March for Joe Gruters, the candidate Patronis endorsed to succeed him. And more than half of Gruters’ Republican colleagues in the Senate are on the host committee.

Gruters’ Chief Financial Officer campaign sent out an e-vite showing the list of elected officials helping raise money for his 2026 race.

Patronis and Sen. Randy Fine serve as the top hosts. Notably, both Fine and Patronis recently won Republican Primaries for the two vacancies in Florida’s congressional delegation and head into April 1 Special Elections as heavy favorites to win those seats. Both candidates were endorsed by President Donald Trump, who also has endorsed Gruters for Chief Financial Officer.

Besides Fine, 16 other Republican Senators also are part of the host committee. That includes two former Senate Presidents: Don Gaetz and Kathleen Passidomo.

Sens. Jennifer Bradley, Jason Brodeur, Danny Burgess, Colleen Burton, Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia, Erin Grall, Ed Hooper, Stan McClain, Ana Maria Rodriguez, Keith Truenow, Jay Trumbull, Tom Wright and Clay Yarborough are all listed on the e-vite.

So is Tom Gallagher, the state’s first Chief Financial Officer, who served from 2003 to 2007.

The host committee is almost more notable for which Senators are not listed. The fundraiser will be held at the Governors Club March 3 at 6 p.m.

One expected absence is Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican widely seen as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ likely favorite to appoint as Chief Financial Officer once Patronis vacates the seat at the end of March. Gruters has said he will run in 2026 regardless of who DeSantis appoints to the position.

Some other Senators closely aligned with DeSantis, including Sens. Bryan Avila, Jay Collins and Jonathan Martin, also are not on the host committee for Gruters.

Senate President Ben Albritton isn’t on the e-vite, nor is Sen. Jim Boyd, the Bradenton Republican in line to succeed Albritton.

But of the 27 Republicans in the Senate besides Gruters, 17 will be actively raising money for his statewide campaign at the event.

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President Donald Trump’s administration is throwing out protections that shielded roughly half a million Haitians from deportation, meaning they would lose their work permits and could be eligible to be removed from the country by August.

The decision, announced Thursday, is part of a sweeping effort by the Trump administration to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations and specifically to scale back the use of the Temporary Protected Status designation, which was widely expanded under former President Joe Biden’s administration to cover about 1 million immigrants.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a news release that it was vacating a Biden administration decision to renew Temporary Protected Status — which gives people legal authority to be in the country but doesn’t provide a long-term path to citizenship — for Haitians.

People with the protection are reliant on the government renewing their status when it expires. Critics, including Republicans and the Trump administration, have said that over time the renewal of the protection status becomes automatic, regardless of what is happening in the person’s home country.

“For decades the TPS system has been exploited and abused,” Homeland Security said in the statement announcing the change. “For example, Haiti has been designated for TPS since 2010. The data shows each extension of the country’s TPS designation allowed more Haitian nationals, even those who entered the U.S. illegally, to qualify for legal protected status.”

Homeland Security said an estimated 57,000 Haitians were eligible for TPS protections as of 2011, but by July of last year, that number had climbed to 520,694.

“To send 500,000 people back to a country where there is such a high level of death, it is utterly inhumane,” said Tessa Petit, a Haitian American who works as Executive Director at the Florida Immigrant Coalition and who says Haiti meets all the requirements to qualify for protections. “We do hope that, because they said that they are going to revisit, that they put politics aside and put humanity first.”

Farah Larrieux, a 46-year-old Haitian who arrived in the U.S. in 2005 and has been protected by TPS since 2010, said the decision demonstrates that officials “don’t care about what is going on in Haiti.”

“Nobody is safe in Haiti,” said Larrieux, owner of a small communications company in South Florida, where most Haitians in the U.S. live. “This is a disruption of people who have been in this country contributing so much. People have been giving their sweat, their life, the sacrifice to this country.”

It’s not immediately clear how quickly people could be deported once their protections expire. Some may apply for other types of protection, and there are logistical challenges to carrying out such large-scale deportations.

Haiti’s Migration Director, Jean Negot Bonheur Delva, said only 21 Haitians have been deported so far under the Trump administration, but he noted that the group had already been scheduled for deportation under Biden. There were a total of nine flights to Haiti in 2024, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flight data.

Delva cited worries about the strain of sending people back to a country still reeling from violence and where more than 1 million people are homeless because of gang violence.

“It’s very sad that people who left Haiti to look for a better life elsewhere … will come back,” Delva said. “With the insecurity problem, the lack of resources, they will be miserable.”

More than 5,600 people were reported killed last year in Haiti, according to the U.N. And many of the displaced are living in overcrowded makeshift shelters including abandoned government buildings where rapes are becoming increasingly common.

Gangs control 85% of Haiti’s capital and have launched new attacks to seize control of even more territory. Recent massacres have claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians.

Delva said Haiti’s government recently created a commission to help those deported.

“They are children of Haiti. A mother must receive her children from wherever they are,” he said.

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife, giving people authorization to work in increments of up to 18 months at a time.

Toward the end of the Biden administration, 1 million immigrants from 17 countries were protected by TPS, including people from Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine and Lebanon.

The Trump administration has already moved to end the protections for Venezuelans.

Two nonprofit groups Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging that decision.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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