Whether it’s really an existential threat — and not just some trumped-up talking point that’s political catnip for xenophobes — the presence of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. remains a wildly popular talking point for the GOP.
Northbound migration over the U.S.-Mexico border may be on the decline and immigrant-perpetrated crimes incredibly rare, but never mind that. Donald Trump launched his candidacy by calling undocumented immigrants rapists and drug smugglers, and has vowed to set up a government bureau with the express task of tackling such crimes. Some of his executive orders on immigration target municipalities that don’t fully comply with his vision of mass deportations, and Republican-led legislatures in states like Florida have been trying to go down a similar path.
Taking a cue from their federal counterparts who won big(ly?) in 2016 by soldering anti-immigrant positions into their platform, ultra-conservative lawmakers in the Florida House and Senate have introduced several bills that would bolster federal deportation efforts and beef up penalties for undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes.
Immigration activists are hoping that the bills will fail in the Florida Legislature, as some have before, citing legal issues and costly side effects.
Costly for whom, you might ask?
You — and the rest of the taxpayers in your community.
Proposed legislation like the oft-described anti-sanctuary resolution, HB 697 — introduced by Republican State Rep. Larry Metz of Yalaha — would penalize cities that do not fully contribute to Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s efforts to ramp up the deportation process. If passed, noncompliant cities would face penalties and fines of up to $5,000 per day. As of this week’s print deadline, that bill and its Senate companion, SB 786 (filed by Jacksonville area Sen. Aaron Bean) had yet to reach a floor vote in their respective chambers.
Another pair of bills, SB120 and HB 83, would add 10 to 15 years to the sentences of undocumented immigrants who commit felonies. Both bills are also currently in committee.
Advocates across Florida argue that such measures are counterproductive to the health and prosperity of the state’s communities.
Every year, Francesca Menes, policy and advocacy director of the Florida Immigration Coalition, makes the trek from Miami to Tallahassee to advocate for immigrants’ rights during the Florida legislative session, which typically lasts between March and May. Over the last several years she’s seen bills that could harm members of the immigrant community.
Menes says that anti-sanctuary policies like HB 697/SB 786 “strong-arm” cities into expending local resources to do the federal government’s bidding. They’re another example of state lawmakers stripping authority from local government despite Republicans’ oft-stated espousal of “home rule.”
FLIC is among many organizations calling on state and local authorities to adopt welcoming resolutions that support immigrants. Also on the coalition’s agenda is a push for limited detainer policies, which minimize collaboration between local and federal authorities on immigration enforcement processes. Menes says local governments should be dedicated to the people, not to ICE.
The economic implications of more aggressive immigration enforcement in Florida could also pose a threat to the health of the state’s agricultural sector (which relies heavily on a migrant labor force consisting largely of undocumented workers), which is one of many reasons why Menes says it’s “looking more and more unlikely” that Florida will pass the sanctuary city bill.
A current shortage of farm laborers is jeopardizing the fate of crops across the state — citrus, strawberries, tomatoes and others — and a bill forcing more deportations would only make that worse. If passed, actions stemming from bills like HB 697 could thin an already waning labor force vital to the health of the state’s agricultural sector. And despite the much-spouted talking point about immigrants taking jobs from U.S. citizens, the idea that Americans would rush into the state’s fields, orchards and nurseries and fill in the gaps for the kinds of wages those workers earn is probably not realistic. After similar immigration enforcement legislation was passed in Georgia in 2011, labor shortages caused over $140 million in crop rot and waste.
Jonathan Fried, executive director of We Count, an advocacy group for Latin American immigrants and farm workers in Homestead, FL, says migrant workers terrified by Trump’s “blueprint of massive deportation effort” are avoiding public spaces, including the fields.
As something of a middle ground, some point to the H-2A work visa as a legal means for filling the labor-intensive positions few Americans are willing to take. But the time-consuming and expensive process of securing the visas can deter growers with limited resources. Labor rights advocates also maintain that the program, which stipulates that workers stay tied to the same employer throughout the duration of their visa, leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation since it would be difficult to seek another employer in cases of abuse.
Regardless of status, migrant workers are sweating the inflammatory rhetoric painting them as criminals. Fried says the slurs propagated by Trump and his supporters are scaring undocumented workers into the shadows. “What used to be extreme has become mainstream,” Fried said. “That’s what’s so scary.”
We Count is part of a host of immigrant advocacy groups scrambling to “prepare for what could be coming,” particularly for families with both documented and undocumented immigrants. They hope to offer more “know your rights” sessions to educate people on how to handle an encounter with authorities. But there is a lot of confusion over those rights, particularly when an individual is being held in a municipal detention facility on a federally issued detainer request.
At the heart of the debate over sanctuary cities is the extent to which local authorities must cooperate with federal requests to hold a person arrested on local charges for an additional 48 hours beyond their originally scheduled time of release.
The Department of Homeland Security says detainers are protective measures that keep violent criminals off the streets. But immigrants’ rights advocates say the requests are a way to use the criminal justice system as a dragnet.
The degree to which local governments are required under federal law to comply with federal governments is widely argued. The American Civil Liberties Union labels the requests as “administrative warrants” that alone do not establish probable cause for detainment. The nonpartisan legal advocacy organization maintains that without an order from a judge, holding an individual on the sole basis of the detainer request violates that person’s Constitutional rights.
In 2014, two federal court cases determined that local law enforcement agencies’ compliance with detainer requests is voluntary, and that in certain instances ICE detainers violate the Fourth Amendment.
Menes says that when counties honor detainer requests without judicial warrants, they leave themselves open to lawsuits like Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County, in which a federal judge ruled that an Oregon county violated a woman’s right to be free from seizure without probable cause after detaining her on an ICE request past her originally scheduled time of release. Detainer request forms have since been updated to include language about “probable cause.” The Trump administration released a new version of the form at the beginning of this month. Legal advocates at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center maintain that a check box indicating determination of probable cause is not enough to warrant detainment.
Still, many local authorities, like the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, do not split hairs. Colonel Kenneth Davis, head of the Department of Detention Services, said detainer requests are non-negotiable. Davis also denied the validity of claims that detainer requests are only legally mandated when paired with judicial warrants.
“We require probable cause. All those terms like ‘administrative warrant’ — there’s no such thing,” he said. “That’s made-up language.”
A judicial warrant is just one option for a hold, but the most common justification is “probable cause to believe someone is in violation of immigration law,” says Davis, who did not question the validity of the probable cause language on the detainer request form. “We don’t have a quote-unquote limited cooperation with [ICE]. We honor that hold.”
Across the bay, the St. Pete City Council released a welcoming resolution declaring the city “as an inclusive and welcoming city for all of its residents, regardless of immigration status” in March. The resolution’s effect on Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office’s detainer request protocol is unknown. The office did not respond to CL’s request for comment.
Earlier this year, St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman called the city a “sanctuary city,” in a statement he later had to clarify. Since every person arrested in the city is taken to the county jail near Ulmerton and 49th Street for processing, what happens there is up to PCSO. All the city and Police Chief Anthony Holloway can do is instruct officers not to ask non-suspects whether they’re here legally.
“What I will tell you is that [St. Petersburg] police officers will arrest anyone who violates the law,” Kriseman said during a visit to a St. Petersburg mosque. “What they won’t do is, they won’t ask, ‘Are you an illegal immigrant?’ and ‘Can I see your papers?’ They don’t do that, and they’re not going to start doing that.”
Though largely symbolic, the St. Pete resolution counters the slew of not-in-my-back-yard hate speech that dehumanizes people who, like it or not, are very much a part of Florida’s economy and culture. Whether Hillsborough County and Florida state legislators will climb aboard the welcome train remains to be seen.
Both Menes and Fried say they have noticed an increase in pro-immigrant citizen advocacy. At both the federal and state levels, Menes says that at this point immigration reform is “a numbers game” that elected officials, particularly those up for reelection, don’t want to lose.
A current shortage of farm laborers is jeopardizing the fate of crops across the state, and a bill forcing more deportations would only make that worse.