Florida is on the verge of signing onto one of President Donald Trump’s top priorities — outlawing so-called sanctuary cities that offer protections to undocumented residents.
The Florida Senate voted 22-18 Friday to approve a bill that requires state, county and city agencies to work with federal immigration authorities. A similar bill passed the House earlier this week.
State lawmakers took up the issue even though there are no sanctuary jurisdictions in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
“This bill is about respecting the rule of law,” said Sen. Joe Gruters, who sponsored the legislation and also chairs the Republican Party of Florida. “It’s about cooperating with the federal government, and it’s about promoting public safety.”
In recent years, the Senate had blocked efforts to ban sanctuary cities. The House and Senate will need to iron out differences in their bills before it is sent to the governor for his signature.
Under the bill, counties and cities would be required to use their “best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.” The House version of the bill allows local officials deemed to be “sanctuary policymakers” to be be fined up to $5,000 a day.
The bill requires local jails to fully comply with requests to hold inmates for federal immigration authorities.
The proposal spurred heated debate and boisterous protests in a state where one-out-of-every-five residents is foreign born.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued a travel alert warning visitors they could “face risks of being racially profiled and being detained without probable cause” if the sanctuary city legislation becomes law. Miami Police Chief Jorge Colina told a Spanish-language radio program that he’d quit his job if his officers were required to check the immigration status of people they encounter.
Senate Democrats succeeded in passing an amendment that exempts state prosecutors and the Department of Children of Families from the requirements.
While Republicans said the bill was aimed at dangerous criminals, Democrats said it will make immigrants fearful to report crimes and could result in them being targeted for deportation for low-level offenses, even for a minor violation like driving without a license.
“These are the people keeping the engine of our state going,” said Sen. Annette Taddeo, D-Miami. “These are the hard-working people. It’s mean to call human beings aliens. It’s mean to assume all undocumented people are bad people.”