This week, the Florida Senate passed a set of rules that many describe as the toughest in the country against illegal immigration.
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Although the measures must still be processed by the Chamber -where it is anticipated that they will also be approved-, they confirm from now on the sharp turn to the right that is registered in a state that until a few years ago was considered oscillating in political terms.
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The turnaround includes not only immigration but a vast set of aspects ranging from educational and medical to social and cultural. A change, to a large extent, led by the governor and possible presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and a state Congress that has been controlled by the Republican party for several terms.
According to state senator Blaise Ingogolia, the central objective of the measure is to build a “legal wall” as opposed to a physical wall to make Florida inhospitable to illegal immigrants and those who facilitate their arrival.
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“We have come to this because of the incompetence of the federal government to prevent the flow of illegal migrants across the border. And it is unfortunate that the states are in this position but we must protect our residents,” Ingogolia said in an open criticism of the immigration policies of the administration of President Joe Biden, which is facing a true crisis due to the massive arrival of illegal immigrants to the ports of entry into the US, where record figures have been recorded in the last two years.
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We have come to this because of the incompetence of the federal government to prevent the flow of illegal migrants across the border.
According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), many of these migrants, including thousands of Colombians, end up settling in Florida thanks to the help of family members or friends who are already in the US and help them find work.
According to MPI, there would be nearly 750,000 illegals in the state today.
The project attacks the problem from several angles. On the one hand, it provides for severe jail sentences for those who are caught transporting illegals in the state, even if they are Americans. Likewise, it declares invalid the driving licenses issued by other states and that serve to identify oneself before the authorities. This to counteract a decision made in California that allowed more than a million illegals to obtain driver’s licenses.
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It also prohibits local governments in the state from issuing identification cards to people who cannot prove their legal status in the country, and requires voters in elections to first declare if they are citizens of the United States.
It also repeals a 2014 law that allowed certain immigrants without status -such as the so-called dreamers or people who were brought to the country as children- to obtain reduced rates at universities and asks hospitals that receive government funds to find out why the legal status of patients before providing services.
Medical centers, in parallel, will be obliged to share said information with the authorities. For while no one will be denied medical care, The intention here is twofold: to obtain information and stop the use of state resources to serve illegal immigrants.
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In order to close the labor market for them, the bill proposes raising the sanctions against companies that hire someone without a legal work permit or with a false permit. The sanctions would be gradual, starting with financial penalties, and then jail and the dissolution of the company for repeat offenders. The authorities will also have the power to audit companies in order to determine if there are illegal immigrants on their payrolls.
The measures, of course, have provoked repudiation among Democrats and groups that defend the rights of immigrants.
“These projects are going to end up turning Florida into a police state in which public safety is eroded and trust between communities is destroyed,” says AJ Hernández, of the SPLC Action Fund.
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For Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and co-founder of the so-called Lincoln Project, in the end, moves like these -and which are advanced by others such as Texas- “have above all a political and electoral objective because they are liked by the base of the Republican party but they do nothing for promote a true immigration reform that corrects a system that is riddled with inconsistency”.
Something similar to what the governors of both states -DeSantis and Gregg Abbott- did last year when they caused a scandal by loading illegals on buses and planes to transport them to states controlled by Democrats.
Both maintain the strategist, they are candidates for the presidency and they want to be seen as the firmest against illegal immigration, one of the issues that led Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 and that will also be central in the campaigns for the elections of the 2024.
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Beyond the immigration
Florida’s turn is not only in immigration. Last year, DeSantis had already signed a law that makes abortion illegal beyond the 15th week of pregnancy with some exceptions. This after the Supreme Court of Justice annulled Roe vs. Wade, a previous sentence of this same court that legalized the practice in the United States.
But now, the state Congress, under its auspices, wants to go much further. This week, too, the House of Representatives approved a new project that prohibits abortion from the sixth week and that would make the state one of the most restrictive in the entire country.
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Although the language includes an exception for victims of incest and rape, it only allows the practice in these cases up to week 15. Critics maintain that it is an almost total ban on abortion, since almost no woman knows that she is pregnant before the sixth week and in cases of incest or abortion strict documentation is required to prove it which is unlikely to be obtained before the deadline expires.
It is not “sinful” to prohibit the mutilation of minors.
It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures like sex change operations be allowed for children. https://t.co/YhPrrU5Poi
—Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 14, 2023
Florida regulations already provide for severe penalties for those who practice without proper documentation or beyond what is allowed, which has reduced the number of doctors and clinics willing to take the risk.
In the educational, DeSantis and state Republicans are in a frontal war against instruction in schools about gender identity, sexual orientation and racial profiling.
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In 2022, the legislature had already passed a law that prevents teaching on these subjects before the fourth grade. But, now they included a new measure that seeks to block this type of instruction until the ninth grade, or the beginning of high school in the US.
Likewise, they have been carrying out “book purges” in schools to prevent students and teachers from having access to this type of material.
These initiatives by DeSantis are part of a “crusade” that he has launched against what he calls the woke movement in the US or the culture of cancellation. Part of it has been its dispute with Disney World after the company criticized its education law as discriminatory against the LGBTIQ+ community.
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The governor responded by pushing a project – signed three weeks ago – that ended the autonomy that the park had for decades in Orlando.
All of them, including immigration, sexual and educational measures, are part of the portfolio that DeSantis wants to present to the country and to the conservatives that he hopes will elect him to the White House in the near future and who are radically changing the lives of many in the sunshine state.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
On twitter: @sergom68
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