Florida GOP Seeks Deathblow to Sanctuary Cities: ‘We Are a Nation of Rules’
Republican lawmakers in Florida are taking aim at sanctuary city policies with two bills designed to penalize cities, counties, and elected officials that do not fully cooperate with federal enforcement of immigration law.
According to The Miami Herald, The Rule of Law Adherence Act (SB 786 / HB 697) would implement a number of penalties and fines for state, local, or law enforcement agencies that employ “sanctuary policies.”
The bills would formally define a “sanctuary policy” as any “law, policy, practice, procedure, or custom adopted or permitted … which contravenes or which knowingly prohibits or impedes a law enforcement agency from communicating or cooperating with a federal immigration agency with respect to federal immigration enforcement.”
“What this bill would do is put into policy in the state of Florida the idea that our immigration policies at the federal level should receive cooperative support at the state and local level,” said Rep. Larry Metz, R-Yalaha.
Specific provisions of the legislation would:
Prohibit government entities from adopting sanctuary policies and require any existing ones to be repealed within 90 days;
Require state and local governments and law enforcement agencies to “fully comply” and support federal immigration law and prohibit any efforts to restrict or limit that support;
Require government officials and workers to report “known or probable violations” of the act — under threat of suspension or removal from elected office — and require the attorney general to investigate those reports;
Protect whistle-blowers who report such violations;
Impose a fine of up to $5,000 a day, starting Oct. 1, on any government entity that is found to still have a sanctuary policy;
Allow the governor to remove from office any elected official who is found to have violated the act;
Allow government agencies to be sued should a person who is in the country illegally injure or kill someone as a result of the government entity having a prohibited sanctuary policy; and, withhold state grant funding for five years from any government entity that violates the act.
“The one thing that everybody should know in our country is: We can’t choose which laws we’ll obey or which laws we don’t obey,” said state Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach. (For more from the author of “Florida GOP Seeks Deathblow to Sanctuary Cities: ‘We Are a Nation of Rules” please click HERE)
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