On October 20, Elise Foley wrote an article entitled, Florida Immigration Bill Allows Police to Skip Over Canadians, Europeans. The Florida bill mimics Arizona's SB 1070 which "require[s] police to check legal status on anyone they "reasonably" suspec[t] of being in the country illegally if the police have already stopped them" (2010). The Florida bill also requires similar actions by their police, but allows them to assume the status of Canadians along with that of people from Western Europe (if they have a passport from said country). It has been argued that the provision clearly allows police to legally target a specific minority.
Representative William Snyder drafted Florida's bill and said "the language was meant to avoid deterring tourism from Canada. "What we're doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians"" (2010). He goes on to describe the bill's language as 'comfort' language.
Through reading this article I find it difficult to fully understand, or agree with William Snyder's reasonings for allowing "Canadians and Western Europeans to be presumed to be legally in the United States (2010), while non-citizens from other countries must carry around papers. Ultimately, I think it is absurd for Florida to propose such a seemingly discriminatory bill. I do not think that they should be targeting specific populations, while clearly excluding others. I think that this bill could potentially deter tourism from people that are not from Canada or Western Europe simply because they are at greater risk. In the end, I simply disagree with the language of this bill and think it should be scrapped based on that alone.
http://washingtonindependent.com/101195/florida-immigration-bill-allows-police-to-skip-over-canadians-europeans
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