Led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican with presidential ambitions, the Florida Legislature is considering a sweeping package of immigration measures that would represent the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration by any state in more than a decade.
Expected to pass within weeks because Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers, the bills are part of what DeSantis describes as a response to President Joe Biden’s “open borders agenda”, which has allowed an uncontrolled flow of immigrants to cross into the United States from Mexico.
The bills would expose people to felony charges for sheltering, hiring and transporting immigrants who are in the country without legal permission, require hospitals to ask patients their immigration status and report to the state, invalidate out-of-state driver’s licenses issued to immigrants in the country without legal permission and direct the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to provide assistance to federal authorities in enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.
DeSantis has separately proposed eliminating in-state college tuition for students in the country without legal permission and beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, who were brought to the United States as young children. The tuition law was enacted by his predecessor Rick Scott, now a Republican U.S. senator, in 2014.
The new measures represent the most far-reaching state immigration legislation since 2010, when Arizona, a border state that was the nation’s busiest corridor for human smuggling at the time, passed a law that required the police to ask people they stopped for proof of immigration status if they had a reason to suspect they might be in the country illegally.
“We need to do everything in our power to protect the people of Florida from what’s going on at the border and the border crisis”, DeSantis said at a news conference on February 23, during which he unveiled his proposals and spoke from a lectern emblazoned with the words “Biden’s Border Crisis”.
Backers of the new bills say they are not opposed to immigration but are trying to make sure that newcomers follow the law.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way to come here”, state Sen. Debbie Mayfield, a Republican, said during a hearing on one of the bills. “We have a process in this country. We’re not trying to hurt or harm people who are here legally”.
Critics warn the bills will sow fear, promote racial profiling and harm Florida’s economy. The illegal immigrants in the US are estimated to be more than 10 million.
Texas is moving in the same direction. Republican state lawmakers have proposed a significant expansion in the immigration control program pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott, who, like DeSantis, is a Republican.
Draft legislation presented in March calls for the state to take on some of the authority now exercised by the federal government, creating a border police force and making it a state felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to illegally cross the border into Texas.
Texas has already deployed National Guard troops on the border and, along with Arizona, has bused newly arriving migrants to cities around the country.
After a record 2.5 million migrant interceptions at the border last year, both Republican governors have accused Biden of losing control of the situation.
“When Biden continues to ignore his legal responsibilities, we will step in to support our communities”, DeSantis said in January.
Last year, the Florida governor commissioned two private planes to fly unwitting Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, fueling outrage and prompting lawsuits. In January, he declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard as vessels ferrying Cuban and Haitian migrants docked in the Florida Keys that month and in February.
Neither the state nor the federal government has data on how many immigrants reached Florida during the latest border surge last year, but there are signs that the state has been heavily affected.
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As of March 31, the immigration courts in Florida had 296,833 cases pending, more than any other state, dwarfing New York’s 187,179 and Texas’ 184,867 cases.
State officials said health care for immigrants in the country illegally cost nearly $313 million during the 2020-21 fiscal year, a sum paid by local, state and federal governments.
DeSantis warned that continuing influxes threatened to increase crime, diminish jobs and wages for American workers and burden the state’s education systems.
Under the proposed new bills, a person could be charged with a third-degree felony for knowingly transporting, concealing or harboring immigrants in the country illegally, punishable by up to five years in prison.
The law could also apply to a landlord who rents property to an family in the country illegally or someone who has a person in the country illegally living in their home, such as a housekeeper or caretaker.
“As the bill is written, there are no exceptions”, said Paul Chavez, a lawyer affiliated with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is preparing to challenge the legislation in court if it passes.
One of the most heavily debated provisions is one that targets hospitals, which would be required to collect data on the immigration status of patients and to submit it to the state. The law would not prohibit treatment, but critics warn that it would discourage immigrants in the country illegally from seeking care.
The legislation calls for new state penalties to be imposed on employers who hire immigrants without work authorization.
More than 1 in 5 Florida residents are immigrants, an estimated 800,000 of them in the country without legal permission, and 722,000 American citizens in the state live in households with one or more immigrants in the country illegally.
The Florida legislation, introduced on the first day of the session that ends in May, is expected to be fast-tracked by the Republican leadership.
“I wholeheartedly thank and commend Gov. Ron DeSantis for having the courage to lead on this issue”, said state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, who sponsored the bill that passed the Senate Rules Committee last month. “This problem is now at our doorstep, and Florida will not stand for it anymore”.
Source: yahoo
