A revised bill to curb illegal immigration in Florida is a step closer to passage in the Florida Legislature.
Lawmakers meeting in a special session in Tallahassee Wednesday voted in the House budget committee, 22-8 along party lines, to move the 1,200-page, $300 million bill forward to the full Legislature.
The bill contains more than a dozen proposals, including creating a State Board of Immigration Enforcement and a State Immigration Enforcement Council that would coordinate with federal authorities to enforce immigration law in the state. There are also new penalties for undocumented immigrants who commit crimes and about $250 million to recruit, hire, train and pay bonuses to state, county and local law enforcement officers who participate in federal immigration enforcement operations.
In three hours of debate before the House committee vote, lawmakers addressed the bill’s requirement of the death penalty for capital crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and mandatory pre-trial detention for unauthorized aliens. Both Republican and Democratic members of the committee conceded the constitutionality of that part of the bill would likely be litigated in court if it is passed.
But most of the debate time was taken by arguments over the part of the bill that eliminates in-state tuition for the 6,500 undocumented colleges students in Florida often called “Dreamers.’’ During public comment on the bill, nearly every citizen or advocate who showed up to speak decried the elimination of the tuition benefit as unfair – especially to the students who have received it and would lose it July 1 when the bill would take effect, if it becomes law.
Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, executive director of Central Florida’s Hope Community Center, traveled to Tallahassee to support the in-state tuition benefit. He told lawmakers he used it as an undocumented college student and has since become an U.S. citizen who leads a non-profit that serves 20,000 people in the region.
“I am living proof of what happens when we choose to invest,’’ Sousa-Lazaballet said. “Let’s make sure the next generation has that same opportunity. I ask to vote with your conscience. Oppose HB1C. Keep in-state tuition for Dreamers. Keep their dreams alive.’’
But the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Lawrence McClure of Dover, countered that ending in-state tuition is a deterrent designed to prevent undocumented parents from bringing their children illegally to the state.
“As it relates to the Dreamers, to reiterate it one more time, this bill was not drafted with the intent to hurt children,’’ McClure said. “That is nearly the most offensive thing that has been insinuated to me. It is simply to take away an incentive. That’s it. No prohibition on education.’’
The bill is expected to be voted on Thursday by the full Legislature. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers, so the bill is expected to pass.
