Senate committee OKs immigration deal between Gov. DeSantis, GOP lawmakers

Joe Gruters initially filed a bill addressing both medical marijuana home grow and hemp rules, but refiled it as a measure focused solely on home cultivation.

The Senate has moved a step closer to passing a new bill that is a compromise between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature over who gets power to oversee the state’s immigration efforts.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill (SB 2C) sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters that would establish a board to oversee Florida’s immigration efforts and increase penalties for crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. 

Democrats spoke fiercely against another provision in the measure that would eliminate in-state tuition rates for the 6,500 undocumented immigrants currently attending Florida’s public colleges and universities.

Ultimately, the committee’s vote was 12 to 6.

Last month, the Legislature passed the TRUMP Act naming Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson as the state’s immigration enforcement chief, taking that power from DeSantis.

Lawmakers and DeSantis clashed over who should be the leader working with the federal government to stop illegal immigration. The Governor vowed to veto the bill.

The Legislature went back into Special Session this week for the third time, with Gruters’ bill proposing that no single official would have the role. Instead, DeSantis, Simpson, the Attorney General, the Chief Financial Officer and handpicked county Sheriffs and Police Chiefs would share those responsibilities and be required to make decisions unanimously as a council. 

During Wednesday’s hearing, Democrats raised concerns that undocumented students known as Dreamers could see tuition tripled or quadrupled to out-of-state rates, potentially forcing them to drop out of school.

“Take out in-state tuition, and I’d vote for it,” said Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo of the immigration bill during the three-hour discussion Wednesday.

But Republican Sen. Randy Fine, who stood next to Gruters, defended the bill by saying, “I am sorry that their parents did it to them. These children did not magically appear in the United States. Their parents chose to break the law.”

Democrats also argued that the legislation wasn’t strong enough to address the root of illegal immigration: the employers who hire undocumented workers.

“This legislation is not serious about curbing illegal immigration,” said Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith. “We don’t need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to duplicate what the federal government is already doing.”

Kara Gross, the Legislative Director for the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned the bill would have a devastating impact. Some immigrants overstayed their visas years ago and stayed in the United States where they work, raise their families and pay taxes, Gross said.

“Because of the color of their skin or the accent that they speak with, they are targeted and swept up in this. That’s what this rhetoric does,” Gross said. “It makes it seem that people are illegal when they’re just here. They’re merely present in our state. And they’ve been here for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.”

But Republicans argued the bill stands with President Donald Trump’s agenda to ramp up deportations of undocumented immigrants.

“Part of the debate I find very troubling, I don’t know if it’s intentional or just wrong, but there’s this confluence … that we’re anti-immigration, as though there is no difference between illegal immigration and legal immigration,” Fine said. “It is a crime to come across the border in an unauthorized way. That is a federal crime.”