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OPINION


CITIZEN OR NOT: WHY HISPANICS AND PEOPLE OF COLOR ARE NOT SAFE IN FLORIDA

Silvana Caldera
Your Turn



For the past few weeks, Florida has stolen the national spotlight for all the
wrong reasons. After Gov. DeSantis signed one of the most exhaustive
anti-immigrant bills into law, the entire country has looked on as Floridians
scramble to understand what this means for them, and even flee before the law
goes into effect. Immigrants, and anyone that may be perceived as an immigrant
due to their skin color, accent, community ties or other factors, are in danger
of being discriminated against, racially profiled and questioned.

This new law, Senate Bill 1718 (SB 1718), criminalizes traveling across state
lines with undocumented people, invalidates out-of-state licenses issued to
undocumented immigrants, requires hospitals to ask about immigration status,
expands E-Verify, prohibits local governments from funding community IDs, funds
a program to expel migrants and more. In short, it attacks immigrants and those
who interact with them in Florida and infringes on people’s ability to go about
daily life.



While the new law is shocking and has spread fear throughout the state,
anti-immigrant policies aren’t new in Florida. For years, local policies and
entanglements with federal immigration enforcement have targeted immigrants, or
those perceived to be immigrants, and have led to detention and family
separation.

Earlier this year, a document from State Attorney Jack Campbell’s office in
Jefferson County, Florida, indicated that the office has been using a racist
policy to target Hispanics with harsher penalties. The document, leaked by a
former attorney in the office, instructed prosecutors to pursue a guilty charge
if a defendant is “Hispanic.” Specifically, the memo stated, “IF EXTENSIVE
CRIMINAL HISTORY and/or HISPANIC -> Adjudicated Guilty + Costs.”



It only got worse from there. When Campbell confirmed the existence of the
document, he said the document should have said “Undocumented” instead of
“Hispanics.” This shows that the State Attorney for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, in
charge of state prosecutions in Franklin, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty, and
Wakulla counties, was either unaware or complicit in harsher penalties being
doled out for Hispanics.

In case he wasn’t sure, that could still be illegal. It is a crime under federal
law to subject people to harsher penalties on account of their immigration
status. And federal courts often deem policies that discriminate against
undocumented immigrants as unconstitutional. Either way, prosecutors are
unilaterally discriminating against people they rightly or wrongly believe are
undocumented immigrants when making potentially life-changing prosecutorial
decisions.



Every Floridian should be offended by this racist policy. Not only is this State
Attorney's Office using stereotypes about "Hispanic" people to harm them, but
it's improperly conflating "Hispanics" and undocumented people to discriminate
against people of color, particularly Black and brown people. The notion that
this entire group of people - citizen or not - deserves harsher punishment based
on their ethnic identity is textbook discrimination.

The problem with the State Attorney playing such a powerful role in the criminal
legal system is that these racist assumptions and policies put people in jail
and change their lives forever. Laws like SB 1718 or policies like that of the
State Attorney’s Office only contribute to a growing toolbox of measures used to
harm and discriminate against people of color.



For some, this might be hard to believe in a state where over a quarter of
Floridians are Hispanic and are essential to the fabric and growth of the state.
So, while Florida’s anti-immigrant culture is growing, that also means it's not
just immigrants and their communities that are paying the cost, but all
Floridians.

We need elected officials that care about protecting and improving our
communities, not attacking, dehumanizing and criminalizing them. And we must
also hold offices like the State Attorney’s Office in Jefferson County
accountable.



Silvana Caldera is a Senior Policy Strategist at the ACLU of Florida,
specializing in immigrants’ rights.

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