Articles Posted in Legislation

Although no announcement has been forthcoming, the worst kept secret in the American political arena is the impending run of Florida Governor Ron Desantis for office the President of the United States.  As he ratchets up support to begin his battle with Donald Trump during the Republican primary, Governor Desantis has pushed through a bill in the Florida House and Florida Senate that looks a lot like federal congressional legislative action.

Balance of State and Federal Power
HB 1718/SB 1718, colloquially known as Florida’s immigration bill, or Florida’s anti-immigration bill (depending on who you ask), passed both houses of Florida’s government and is expected to become the law of the land in Florida on July 1, 2023. Supporters say it gives teeth to federal laws immigration laws that are being ignored by the current administration.  Detractors say it usurps federal authority, negatively impacts Florida communities, and will have a chilling effect on vulnerable people who need medical attention.  So what does the law actually say? 

Florida’s new immigration law isn’t really just one new law.  It is actually a conglomeration of laws adding and subtracting from different existing statutes all aimed at achieving the same goal: targeting individuals who are in the State of Florida who do not have any lawful immigration status.  

Florida Immigration Law Racially Motivated, According to Federal JudgeAdobeStock_269451886-scaled

Portions of Florida’s immigration enforcement law that was a priority for Republican governor Ron DeSantis has been struck down by a federal judge, according to a report published by the Associated Press (AP). U.S. Federal Judge Beth Bloom rejected the sections of the law banning local government sanctuary policies as well as those requiring local law enforcement to make best efforts to coordinate with federal immigration enforcement authorities. Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill, which was pushed as a priority for his administration, into law in 2019. The governor’s office told news outlets that it would appeal Judge Bloom’s decision.

This is not the first time DeSantis has been challenged on laws passed during his administration. Others include state orders to ban mask mandates in schools, new election rules making vote-by-mail more difficult, and limits on contributions to groups seeking to change the Florida constitution, among others. 

Even though I am an Orlando immigration attorney, I practice immigration law all over the United States. I like to think of myself as an attorney on the forefront of both immigration and criminal law, and especially where to two cross over. Because of that, I try to stay on top of changes in both federal immigration law and state criminal law that may effect my immigration clients.

This legislative session in Florida has seen a large number of immigration-related bills designed to punish and deter immigrants from entering, living in, or committing crimes in Florida. I blogged about a couple of them a while back.

One bill created a very serious criminal offense for people who were present in Florida after receiving an order of deportation. Check out my blog about this bill here: https://www.floridaimmigrationlawyerblog.com/2015/09/a_law_pending_in_the_florida_l.html

Congress recently passed legislation that changes who is eligible to enter the United States through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). These changes are in reaction to the fears that terrorists and terrorist sympathizers will enter the United States exploiting the ease by which people can enter through the VWP.

The Visa Waiver Program was designed to allow citizens of certain countries to avoid the lengthy process by which most foreign nationals must apply for a visa at a U.S. consulate abroad. The normal process involves an application, a background check, an interview and sometimes more. Applications for short-term visitor or business visas are routinely denied. The Visa Waiver Program allows qualified citizens from 38 countries to avoid this process and with a quick online registration, obtain an electronic visa and admission into the United States for 90 days at a time.

This list of 38 countries changes often and usually only contains first-world countries that have low rates of people overstaying their visas, claiming asylum or otherwise abusing the visa process. Citizens from all over Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of East Asia enjoy the use of Visa Waiver admissions.

There is a bill currently pending before Florida Senate that seeks to increase the maximum punishment for certain crimes committed by “illegal immigrants.” You can read the text of Senate Bill 150 here:

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0150/BillText/__/HTML

Thankfully, there is no companion bill in the House. At first glance, many Floridians may think, “good, if someone is here illegally and commits a crime, they should face higher penalties.” But that gut reaction is wrong in this case, as the devil is always in the details. If you know anything about immigration law or have been following the protracted fights between the Obama administration and the federal courts over immigration, you know that the Federal Government and Federal Courts have a hard time interpreting and administering federal immigration laws themselves. What this bill proposes to do is to impose upon the Florida courts, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys the additional time, financial and legal burden of determining the immigration status of a person before, during and after they commit a crime. This is much easier said then done.

This Friday and Saturday, October 16th & 17th, the Central Florida Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) will host its 2015 Annual Immigration Law Conference in Orlando. This conference will feature leading immigration experts from across the United States and a sitting U.S. Congressman. The venue is the beautiful Omni Champions Gate Resort.

SLG has the honor of having two of its partners, Jeremy Lasnetski and John Gihon, selected to be panelists at the conference.

Jeremy was chosen to be the discussion leader on the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization panel. This panel will cover topics including the acquisition of citizenship by birth abroad, derivation of citizenship through a naturalizing parent and the requirements and procedure for naturalization.

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

District Court Opinions

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

11th Circuit Decisions (September)

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

11th Circuit Decisions (June through August)

Recently a concerned colleague sent a me a link to a bill that is under consideration in both the Florida House of Representatives and the Senate.

The crux of the bill is to make it illegal for immigrants to be in the State of Florida after they have a final order of deportation. For a copy of the bill follow these links:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0118/BillText/__/PDF

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