Florida Just Banned Sanctuary Cities
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a law for the state of Florida, effectively banning the idea of sanctuary cities across the entire state. This news is a devastating blow to the millions of immigrants in the state of Florida, a place that was commonly seen as a refuge for Latin immigrants and Cubans specifically, seeking respite from the persecution, economic turmoil, and overall poor quality of life associated with their home countries. During a normal immigration attorney consultation, Mr. Steven Veinger, a top immigration lawyer in Miami, would often be able to help clients petition for asylum and seek refuge within the sunshine state – a state that was always known to be one of the most immigrant-friendly in the entire union.
Florida is by far one of the most diverse states in all of the United States. A melting pot of nationalities, colors and cultures, Florida was often seen a being quite progressive when it came to immigrant relations and had used its long history as such to create and foster strong links to Latin American culture. During an immigration attorney consultation, Mr. Veinger was able to help many illegal Floridians, providing them with a number of different options for help. From becoming permanent residents or citizens, to gaining a temporary visa or bringing loved ones over, the state of Florida was always known to be a safe haven for men, women and children in need of a resolution their immigration issues. Before we move forward, lets explain what a sanctuary city is actually and how this new law will now impact immigrants and local governments moving.
Now in recent years, the current Trump administration has been doing everything they can to make life impossibly hard for the system we had in place. From issues surrounding the border closings, to the headline grabbing separation of families – Trump’s stance on immigration has been quite ahard one. He has had ICE agents, running through big cities, picking up those they suspected to be immigrants of any kind – essentially racially profiling them, and asking them to immediately, on the spot, produce paperwork showing that they did in fact belong in this country and had some sort of legal grounds for being here. Now these ICE agents were known for being ruthless, and quite rude to individuals, detaining people no matter what their situation might be – whether they were pushing a baby in a stroller, with family and friends, or on their way to or from their place of work. In years past living in a sanctuary city, prevented such actions.
A sanctuary city refers to municipal jurisdictions, or a city within the US, that places a limit on their cooperation with the national government, and specifically their effort to enforce immigration law. This means that when a city is a sanctuary city, they will not adhere to certain immigration laws that are instituted by the federal government. By effectively banning these types of cities from the state of Florida, governor DeSantis has made it so that the local governments within the state of Florida must now “use their best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law”. This means that they must now be forced to honor immigration detainer requests for citizens to be detained as per the federal requests, which require law enforcement to detain a person on probable cause if they are “removable” under federal immigration laws. basically, if you assume that someone can be deported, based on their immigrant status, then the city must help the officers or use local authorities to detain them in an effort to eventually deport them to their native country. For those in the state of Florida in need of an immigration attorney consultation, now would be the best time to see about upgrading your status, especially if you are in any way illegal – as this could affect you the next time you are ticketed for jaywalking or simply run a stop sign on an empty strip in Miami. For more information on immigration help be sure to contact Mr. Veinger today.