Ron DeSantis Wants to Make It a Felony to Have an Undocumented Person in Your Home or Car
newrepublic.com
A new Florida bill criminalizes not just undocumented Floridians but anyone who associates with them.

Going full papers please.

Around 772,000 Florida workers, students, and community members are undocumented. And Governor Ron DeSantis wants to make it a felony for anyone to have them in their home or even give them a ride.

Senate Bill 1718, part of Desantis’s broad repressive legislative agenda this year, targets not just undocumented people but also anyone associated with them. The bill, which is likely to pass the Republican-controlled state legislature, criminalizes anyone who transports an undocumented person “into or within this state.” In other words, anyone—co-worker, friend, neighbor, classmate—giving a simple ride to someone they know or care about who is undocumented would be guilty of a third-degree felony.

The bill also criminalizes anyone who “conceals, harbors, or shields” (or “attempts” to do so) an undocumented person in “any place within this state.” Nearly 4 percent of Floridians are undocumented. The bill text, reading like an edict issued in Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Shadow Children series, foments fear about these hundreds of thousands of people. It isn’t hard to imagine law enforcement agencies conflating a house party or simple afternoon cup of tea with a secret migrant-harboring operation.

  • SacredExcrement [any, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Surprisingly, also a felony

    The bill imposes thousands of dollars of fines on private employers who give work to undocumented people; employers are not allowed to continue employing someone if they find out they are undocumented. And any undocumented person who works without appropriate identification papers would be liable to a third-degree felony. The bill also prohibits undocumented people from being admitted to the Florida bar, overturning standing law that currently allows it.

    Conservatives destroying their criminally underpaid slave labor because they just hate brown people that much

    Also,

    Finally, the bill orders Medicaid-accepting hospitals to ask patients to indicate their citizenship status. Ostensibly meant as a cost-tracker for undocumented patient care, the bill reads that the question must be accompanied with an assurance that the patient’s response will not affect care or result in a report to immigration authorities.

    Fucking disgusting.

    • regul [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      employers are not allowed to continue employing someone if they find out they are undocumented

      This is just don't ask don't tell. The restaurant owners will not be punished.

      • MolotovHalfEmpty [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Or it'll be selectively enforced against businesses not deemed right-wing enough / that stand in the way of politicians interests. Invested in redevelopment of a city block but owners are refusing to sell? Oh look, an immigration raid.