TALLAHASSEE, FL—In a Valentine's Day voice vote, the Florida Senate is demanding Congress enforce immigration laws, secure the border, and protect against human and drug trafficking across the southern border. Though the memorial faced accusations of vague and inflammatory language, it ultimately passed the Senate Floor.
"We have a problem on our hands, we have a crisis at our southern border," SM 598's sponsor, Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, said on the Senate Floor. "As of July 2023, more than 7 million people have evaded our authorities and ignored our process...[Now] every single city, every county, every state, is now a border state. It is undeniable that people coming across the southern border have bad intentions: not all of them, but some of them,"
"It is undeniable that the cartels are in absolute control of our southern border," He added, citing a 22 percent increase in fentanyl overdoses in the United States, and 5000 instances of those overdoses in Florida alone.
In an interview with The Floridian, Ingoglia said that "the drug cartels are using current law against the United States in order to keep on fostering the illicit drug trade, sex trafficking, and human trafficking,".
The measure included language that Democrats objected to, including: "The policies of the Biden Administration at our southern border threaten the very foundation of the American way of life," and that increased immigration corresponds to an "increase in violent crime, gang activity, the trafficking of dangerous drugs...and the threat of infectious diseases,".
"I'm concerned with the inflammatory language with regard to immigrants and illegal immigrants, and the way we have used that as a political football here in the legislature," Sen. Bobby Powell said. "I don't believe that it's our nature as a body to tie crime to the level of people who are here as legal or illegal immigrants,"
"Subjectively, it says if somebody is here as an immigrant—whether legal or illegal—they are a criminal," He added.
"I cannot support the language of the memorial: I think it's inflammatory, and I think that there's a shorter, clearer, less inflammatory way to accomplish what we are asking of the federal government," Powell's colleague, Sen. Darryl Rouson, echoed.
In his close, Sen. Ingoglia explained that the "offensive" language in his memorial is necessary, stating, "The language in this memorial is sort of offensive because what's going on at the southern border is offensive. We want to send the absolute strongest message to Congress to say: 'Finally get off your butts and fix it',".
The memorial's House companion passed its final committee Wednesday morning, with its final stop being the House Floor.
