Lawmakers introducing the bill describe it as the largest and strongest anti-illegal immigration bill ever introduced by any state. They hope other states will follow Florida’s lead and say it will put pressure on the federal government to solve the immigration crisis.
But in this process, some people could be very impactful, like “Dreamers” who could lose a benefit they received about 8 years ago.
They’ve already introduced a bill here in the House of Representatives and another in the Senate and they’re telling us that in-state tuition changes for Dreamers will be part of another bill sometime in this same session.
The sponsor of the immigration bill, Senator Blaise Ingoglia, says, “I think we should eliminate in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. This should be restricted to people who legally reside in the state of Florida.”
Some Republican representatives disagree, such as Miami-Dade’s new Republican Party Chairman Alex Rizzo, who says, “These are young kids who want to work hard, who want to pursue those careers, so how are we going to tell you, they can’t.”
Bills already introduced require, among other things, the use of E-Verify to confirm the legal status of workers and increase penalties for companies that hire undocumented immigrants.
Other measures prohibit the issuance of identity documents to immigrants without legal status.
And require hospitals to obtain patients’ immigration status to document the funds the state spends on caring for undocumented immigrants.
The project sponsor said the proposal states that they cannot share the patient’s personal information. What they want to know is how many undocumented migrants arrive at the emergency room, how many refuse to answer in order to analyze how much they spend. Then he told us to make better laws.