MIAMI – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday requested {that a} statewide grand jury be set as much as look at networks that illegally smuggle people into the state as a part of an investigation that additionally would give attention to local governments that he says violate state legislation by adopting “sanctuary” insurance policies.
DeSantis filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court requesting that the grand jury be impaneled.
The Republican governor introduced the petition at a news convention with legislation enforcement brokers in Pensacola the place he additionally signed into legislation a invoice that might require county jails to help federal brokers with immigration enforcement and prohibit state and local governments from doing enterprise with contractors who convey into Florida people who’re within the U.S. illegally.
DeSantis additionally mentioned he supposed to develop a strike power made up of state and local legislation enforcement brokers that’s tasked with stopping trafficking. The idea is being examined in a number of Panhandle counties.
“We aren’t a border state. People are wondering, ‘Why are you doing this?,'” DeSantis mentioned. “People will say, ‘Let Texas or Arizona worry about that.’ Let me tell you, people trying to come in illegally are trying to get to Florida.”
If accredited, the statewide grand jury would examine mother and father who use skilled smugglers to convey their unaccompanied youngsters to dwell with them in Florida, traffickers who smuggle people within the nation illegally into Florida and people and organizations that do enterprise with traffickers, both immediately or not directly.
The grand jury additionally could be charged with investigating local jurisdictions that refuse to honor a request to detain people within the nation illegally if they’ve been arrested for a criminal offense. The governor’s petition particularly cites Miami-Dade County as refusing to honor these immigration detainers.
The governor requested that the statewide grand jury be run out of a judicial circuit that covers Hardee, Highlands and Polk counties, an agriculture-heavy area within the inside of the state.
The Florida Legislature in 2019 handed a legislation banning so-called sanctuary cities however a federal decide final September blocked the state from implementing it. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by the town of South Miami and different organizations towards DeSantis. The state is interesting the choice.
