Uncertain and Afraid: Florida’s Immigrants Grapple with a Disrupted Reality Under New Law; Florida Defends Immigration Law that Targets People Who Transport Undocumented Migrants

Uncertain and afraid: Florida’s immigrants grapple with a disrupted reality under new law:

For many in Florida’s vast immigrant community, daily life in recent months has become one governed entirely by fear.

Some try to drive as little as possible and make fewer trips to the supermarket. Others no longer take their children to the park and worry about allowing them to attend school. Others still are hiding out – avoiding travel to other states, not getting regular medical check-ups, or closing their businesses and leaving town. And many are just on high alert – all because of a new immigration law Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in May.

One of the strictest in the nation, the law criminalized transporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status into the state, invalidated any U.S. government identification they might have and blocked local governments from providing them with ID cards. Florida hospitals that receive Medicaid are now mandated to ask patients about immigration status and businesses employing 25 or more people must verify their workers’ legal status.

Other aspects of the law go into effect next year.

DeSantis, who is running for president, signed the bill in hopes of appealing to conservative voters and has criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for the massive influx of migrants at the southern border.

“You have a duty to ensure that these borders are secure,” DeSantis said at the time, signing the law a day before federal immigration rules enacted during the pandemic ended.

Since then, Associated Press interviews with a dozen immigrants found that daily routines have been upended for fear of being detained, separated from their families and deported. —>READ MORE HERE

Florida defends immigration law that targets people who transport undocumented migrants:

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Friday urged a federal judge to reject an attempt to block part of a new state law targeting people who transport undocumented immigrants into the state.

Lawyers in Moody’s office argued that U.S. District Judge Roy Altman should deny a request for a preliminary injunction sought by the Farmworker Association of Florida and individual plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in July.

The case centers on part of a broader immigration law that threatens felony charges for people who transport an immigrant who “entered the United States in violation of law and has not been inspected by the federal government since his or her unlawful entry.”

In seeking the preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs contend that federal immigration law trumps — or “preempts” — the state measure. Also, they contend that the state law is unconstitutionally vague.

But Moody’s office Friday tried to refute the arguments, in part focusing on the word “inspected” in the law.

“The challenged statute prohibits knowingly transporting individuals across state lines — both aliens and U.S. citizens alike — when the federal government has had no opportunity to inspect them following an illegal border crossing,” the state’s lawyers wrote. “Inspections serve several important purposes, including screening for communicable diseases, searching for contraband such as illicit fentanyl and determining if a person is a threat to national security. A person who has not been inspected should be reported to the federal government, not intentionally moved across the country, and Florida’s law codifying that commonsense proposition is neither preempted nor vague.” —>READ MORE HERE

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