Cracking down on IDs of undocumented immigrants

Florida lawmakers are taking aim at a tool that’s important to undocumented immigrants. Under a new bill, cities and counties wouldn’t be allowed to issue community ID cards anymore.

Supporters say it will stop providing incentives for illegal immigration, but it also stops people from doing important things like enrolling children in schools.

Florida community IDs like this one could soon stop being issued and become invalid.

“This is not just about undocumented people. It’s about children who are in foster care, homeless, the elderly, immigrants, they all benefit from this idea,” said Thomas Kennedy from the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

And if there’s someone who knows just how much the community ID cards have helped people, it’s Kennedy.

“I was personally an undocumented person for about 14 years,” said Kennedy. “They’re not like a state ID or a driver’s license. And they don’t qualify on their what’s called a Real ID on their federal purview. But they can be used for municipal services, like enrolling a kid in school or getting a library card, getting a bus pass, etc. So the Florida legislature wants to basically ban the recognition of these IDs by these local governments.”

But state Republicans, like Senator Ingoglia, say differently.

“I think that it’s bad that we’re creating magnets for people to come and make it easier for illegal immigrants to assimilate in the country without going across the border legally,” said Senator Ingoglia.

But legal experts say it poses concerns for law enforcement.

“The police if they stop someone, and they don’t have any documents to show them, or they have their IDs from the respective country, that ID is not valid here in the US. So it’s very important that the immigrants have an ID which identifies them,” said Enrique Prieto, a Fort Myers immigration attorney.

Creating more barriers for people trying to live in Florida.

“I think there’s some research supporting the fact that many of the undocumented workers in Florida have left because of some of the other policies, I think this is just going to be one more domino that falls in more people will actually leave. And they may not have access to jobs, but a lot of different things,” said Hugh Clark, the chair of the social work program at FGCU.

The bill still has to get through multiple committees, but legal experts say they do not believe it will face any problems passing and will make it to the floor.